Pei Hongye, ILO National Project Coordinator
Before joining the ILO in 2014 I’d heard this remarkable fact about Chinese migrant workers: at some 274 million, they represent the greatest population movement in human history. But what I didn’t realize is, I’m actually one of them.
Typically, we think of migrant workers as those who leave the countryside in search of jobs in China’s towns and cities. In Mandarin, they’re known as the nongmingong, or “rural migrant workers”. They’ve been an integral part of the urbanization and globalization process over the past three decades, helping to elevate China to become the world’s second-largest economy.
Evidently, however, I and many of my colleagues and friends in Beijing fit the same definition. We too are all “living and working in a place other than [our] birthplace for more than 12 months”.
Public attention in China tends to focus, understandably, on the many millions of internal migrant workers and the need to protect their rights. Comparatively little attention is paid, however, to the over 10 million Chinese migrant workers overseas.
In 2015, these workers sent home over USD$ 60 billion in remittances. Migrant workers contribute to the development and economic growth in their host countries, while their home countries and communities greatly benefit from their remittances and the skills acquired from their migration experience.
Marcel Crozet / ILO Photo
Many are poorly informed about the reality far beyond their borders and are taken in by unscrupulous recruiters. For example, a recent report in the Chinese media told the story of a man who responded to an online ad promising job placement overseas.Yet, despite their enormous contribution, these workers often suffer low wages, unsafe working conditions, and a lack of social protection and integration, or worse, fall prey to abusive practices such as excessive recruitment and remittance fees that subject them to bonded labour or erode the lion’s share of their income.
The man paid the company some RMB 78,000 (about USD$ 12,000) to find him a job as an interior decorator in Paris. Once he arrived in Paris, he discovered the job paid a third of what he’d been promised. Worse still, the company kept his passport and documents, which meant that he was living in France illegally.
Upon returning to China, the man tried to reclaim his recruitment fee only to find that the company had disappeared without a trace.
I’ve become all too familiar with stories like this in my present role as ILO National Programme Coordinator of the EU-China Dialogue on Migration and Mobility Support Project, a joint initiative of the ILO and International Organization for Migration (IOM) with support from the European Union.
To help protect migrant workers from China, the ILO has reached out to more than 400 public officials, 75 recruitment agencies and 40,000 potential migrants through a combination of training, research, study tours and information campaigns.
Our goal is to broaden the opportunities for legal migration, make migrants aware of the risks they run seeking work through irregular channels, and help governments, trade unions and recruitment agencies provide migrant workers with better services and protection.
Through the EU-China Dialogue on Migration and Mobility Support Project, the ILO is also conducting research that reviews policy, then assesses and forecasts EU labour market demand. We hope these studies will help to enhance and diversify the legal channels for prospective migrants from China who wish to work in Europe.
We will also advocate for the necessary strengthening of cooperation between different government departments, to more effectively manage labour migration, given the current division of responsibility and competency among different government authorities.
In a perfect world, workers wouldn’t have to feel obliged to leave their homes and families in order to find a decent job. But as long as they do, we must work to ensure that they can do so safely and legally.
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Guy Ryder, Director-General of the International Labour Organization
Could a robot replace your job? Fears about technology’s impact on the labour market are nothing new. Way back before the International Labour Organization (ILO) came into being in 1919, the Luddites were one group of early-19th century English workers who destroyed the labour-saving textile machines which were replacing their jobs.
The anxiety that machines could kill millions of jobs in our globalized workplaces is real – and it comes at a time when the world economy is already facing a major employment crisis. The jobs gap in G20 countries stands at about 54 million and could expand to over 60 million by 2018 unless current growth trends improve.
Technology has reduced the labour required for mass production and is further hollowing out the job market by automating even routine legal and accounting tasks. Robotics is making a major breakthrough in manufacturing, with 200,000 industrial robots coming into use each year and a total of 1.5 million expected by this year (2015).
Digital technology, human workplace
Image: Robot arms work on a Porsche Macan’s body at the new plant in the eastern German city of Leipzig February 5, 2014. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz
For developed and developing nations alike, it is clear that as globalization gathers pace, adding more supply chains operating in more complex regulatory environments with blurred geographic boundaries, no country can ignore the digital world without getting left out of the world economy.
So how can we keep the human dimension — in a world of work run more and more by robots? How can we best adapt the labour market and create decent jobs?
Fundamentally and critically, we need to anticipate upcoming technological changes and tackle the education and skills mismatch in labour markets. Globally, one third of employers surveyed complain of not being able to find the right skill sets to fill existing vacancies.
We must build solid bridges between the world of work and training providers, so that skills can be matched to market needs. This is not only a matter for public policy. Employers and trade unions must take more responsibility for investing in skills by sitting at the table with trainers and policy makers. Their talks must be informed by labour market information, employment services and performance reviews.
Adequate education and skills for countries at all development levels increases their ability to innovate and adopt new technologies. It means the difference between inclusive growth and growth that leaves large segments of society behind. A workforce that has been appropriately trained and is able to continue learning boosts investor confidence and thus job growth.
The employee-employer relationship has changed
Changes are inherent in the very nature of the relationship we have with an employer. Workers entering the job market are increasingly offered short-term or temporary contracts and are often forced to take informal work or emigrate for a job. This is exacerbating trends towards income inequalities.
Beyond training for workers in the digital era, sustainable economies require protections for workers in good times and bad. Along with adequate unemployment benefit systems, social protections such as healthcare and pensions form a basis for overall worker security and a healthy economy. Yet only 20% of the world’s population today has adequate social security coverage and more than half lack any coverage at all.
It has been proven that social protection can work as a buffer to mitigate the effects of economic crises. The ILO also advocates minimum levels of social protection as spelled out in its Recommendation 202 concerning national floors of social protection.
Post-digital values?
Established “pre-digital world” values, which are encoded in ILO labour standards, still apply in our post-digital era. In fact, they become even more relevant if the traditional employee-employer relationship becomes increasingly eroded in the future.
The evolving complexities of the world of work will require complex solutions. This is why last year I launched the ILO’s “world of work” initiative to try and provide a factual understanding for defining the trends ahead and discussing what needs to be done to establish the post-digital world we all want.
Our world has changed vastly over the past century and not only because of technology. By 2050, the global population will surpass 9 billion. The number of people aged 60 years and over will have tripled. Three-quarters of older persons will be living in what are now developing countries and the majority will be women.
Human brain, human brawn
This new demographic context has profound implications for labour markets, social security systems, employment and economic development.
For all the strides we’ve made since the Luddite era, we arrive back at the simple truth that the machines were and continue to be built by human brain and brawn. Now and going forward, the digital economy must be a sustainable one and it must be built on decent work which gives humans dignity. It is work which is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for men and women and their families.
Guy Ryder is attending the Annual Meeting 2015 in Davos, and is a panel member in the session Employment: Mind the Gap on 23/1 at 12.30 CET.
This article was originally published on the World Economic Forum website
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After completing high school, I left Kathmandu for the United States to pursue a higher education. That was around 15 years ago and back then, most young people who left Nepal went to similar destinations in the “developed world.”
Not my cousin. He dropped out of high school and went to work in the Middle East. Close to two decades later he still works there, having just left Nepal for another two-year stint.
At the time, he was something of a pioneer. But today, millions of others have followed in his footsteps and gone to other developing countries in the so-called “Global South” in search of opportunity. In fact, between 2000 and 2013, more people from developing countries migrated to other countries in the Global South than to traditional destinations like Europe or the United States.
At Tribhuwan International Airport in Kathmandu, the lines of people waiting to board flights for the Middle East now dwarf those headed to Europe, Australia or North America.
The jobs which attract them tend to be low-skilled, but still pay much more than similar work at home. My cousin, for example, has a sales job and makes around $1,000 per month, which is about five times as much as he made selling tyres in eastern Nepal.
Paying a price
A new report, presented by ILO Director-General Guy Ryder at the 2014 International Labour Convention, calls for fair migration policies and stronger measures to combat forced labour. Get the report
But the extra money comes at a price. He has to give his passport over to his employer when he arrives and needs an exit visa to leave the country. For all intents and purposes, he cannot go home without this employer’s consent.
“Some of my friends have been held up for six months, even after leaving their jobs,” he says.
Compared to many workers in the region, he counts himself lucky. He has furnished sleeping quarters, which he shares with three other men, and works in an air-conditioned complex. But he says that Nepalis often fare much worse.
Statistics are patchy, but reports of forced overtime, delayed wages, harsh working conditions and poor access to healthcare are common place.
Moreover, many migrant workers—including my cousin—often have to borrow money to move abroad and spend much of their first years’ earnings paying it back. My cousin is still repaying the $8,000 loan he took out to leave Nepal for his latest stint in Gulf. And yet, he’s still able to send $600 per month home—money his young wife depends on to raise their two-year old son.
Erasing exploitation
Evidence shows that, even despite the debts taken on by many migrants, they are still able to send back enough to reduce poverty and improve the quality of health care and education for their families. They also play a vital role in the countries they move to, filling jobs that contribute to their economic growth. In doing so, they help to offset problems faced by aging societies, such as a shortage of workers paying into pension schemes.
Migrant workers deserve better than to be exploited. Better labour inspection of sectors such as construction that tend to employ migrant workers, availability of legal recourse for workers to lodge complaints, possibility to have workers’ representatives, access to public services such as health care – are some of many policy measures that could be put in place in the destination countries.
My cousin and I live very different lives, but we are driven by the same creed – a quest for a better life, not just for ourselves but our families and children. As the world becomes ever more connected, we are all more likely to live and work outside our own country of birth. It’s in everyone’s interests to make sure migrant workers’ rights are protected.
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Director-General of the International Labour Organization
In the past few days, I’ve had a chance to talk to some of the leaders who thronged Davos for the annual World Economic Forum.
Some were upbeat over the global economic recovery – however tepid – but I also heard a lot of concern over growing inequality, rising unemployment and the bleak outlook for young people.
And there is indeed cause for concern. When we talk about an exit from the crisis, let’s not forget those left out by the recovery, let’s bear in mind that for over 200 million people, the crisis ends only when they get a job.
Yes, profits are back in many sectors, which is obviously great news for the private sector and should be good for the economy. But in many cases, these profits are going into asset markets rather than being put to work and creating decent jobs.
What that boils down to is a very glum outlook for jobseekers around the world: unemployment is rising, particularly among young people, not enough jobs are being created to cope with the demands of a rising world population, and improvements in working poverty have stalled.
As they leave the Swiss resort, the leaders who attended the summit need to focus on those who were not in Davos, the jobseekers who need work, the workers who need decent wages and the businesses that need an enabling environment, such as access to credit.
CEOs I talked to at the summit largely consider that the crisis is behind us, but that there still is a major hangover: youth unemployment. They are volunteering their companies to fight the good fight against youth unemployment, and that’s very encouraging.
The cost of doing nothing would be huge. As millions more people join the ranks of the unemployed, this can only increase frustration and often anger among jobseekers. Add to that the fact that wages are stagnant and inequalities growing, and we have a potentially explosive situation.
This is not a new issue. The ILO has warned for years that rising unemployment and income disparity threaten to reverse the gains of globalization. And for the third year in a row, a World Economic Forum survey ranked income disparity as a top risk facing the global economy.
Governments must do more to speed up employment creation, to support enterprises that create jobs and to end the uncertainty that leaves employers reluctant to invest in jobs. At the same time, we must allow wages to catch up – this can happen through minimum wage setting and collective bargaining.
It also means companies should pump some of their profits into productive investments rather than share buy-backs.
When I was here last year, there was a lot of talk on the need to solidify the economic recovery. We seem to have moved forward on that front. But when it comes to fighting unemployment and inequality, we are still lagging behind.
The jobs issue is the gorilla in the Davos living room. You can’t ignore it, and as much as one may be tempted to tip-toe around it, we need to tackle it head on. Or it just won’t go away.
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It was a few hours before the official coming into force of the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention, 2006. We were preparing to mark this historic occasion with a live webcast from a ship in Singapore harbour. Our high-level, tripartite panel of seafarers’, shipowners’ and maritime administration representatives was ready. Our communications and webcasting team was ready.
But our ship was delayed due to a typhoon.
No problem for our shipowner hosts. They quickly arranged for and literally cleared the decks of another huge container ship coming into port, in time for the live event. The evening before, the ship had unloaded and loaded containers that would be transporting goods and products worldwide. While we went ahead with our global webcast, the officers and crew were getting the ship ready to sail within 90 minutes of our departure.
During this time, we had the opportunity to meet with the seafarers’, officers’ and ship owners’ representatives and the captain. What clearly emerged from our conversations was that this ILO Convention has broad, enthusiastic and active support from its beneficiaries – at a level that is unprecedented.
We saw the seafarers’ working conditions, safety equipment, cabins, mess hall and recreation facilities – all perfectly decent and in keeping with the MLC. What was really impressive was their enthusiasm about the new Convention, and how pleased and proud they were to see the ILO aboard their ship.
That day – 20 August, 2013 – was their day. But it was also a great day for shipowners, who have clearly recognized that it’s good for business to do the right thing. Their enthusiasm and support was also impressive. And their sensitivity was real, it was palpable.
Captain Lee Chee Seong, Managing Director of Neptune Ship Management Services, told us that what we were seeing were the fruits of years of preparations for the MLC.
They had conducted training for their entire fleet, their senior officers, captains and chief engineers; they had put in place a complaints mechanism so that when the MLC, 2006 came into force the crew would understand their rights and could make use of the complaints procedure to address issues if they arose on board the ship.
What was especially heartening to me was an interview with two young female second officers. Earlier, Capt. Lee had told me that Neptune already had more than 10 female officers, and that he saw the future of seafaring as including more women. The two young women we spoke to bore this out.
At first shyly, then increasingly energetically, they described how they were adapting to working in an industry dominated by men who were not used to seeing women on board. They talked about how their aim was to climb the career ladder quickly and become masters of a vessel, sending a fantastically positive message that this is an industry where women have a place and would be welcomed.
This is something, of course, that the MLC, 2006 already addresses.
We will see how things evolve in the coming months and years, as the MLC, 2006 takes hold. But for now, judging from my experiences in Singapore, and during a subsequent meeting of Asian, Norwegian and Eastern European seafarers in Vladivostok, there is cause for optimism and celebration. The MLC, 2006 is now international law and the maritime sector will never be the same.
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