7/23/2020
Migration News Wage Theft amid Pandemic Adds to Remittance Dip
role,” Dr. Dilip Ratha, Lead Economist, Migration and
Remittances and Head of KNOMAD, World Bank, said.
According to the World Bank, the projected fall, which would be
the sharpest decline in recent history, is largely due to a fall in
the wages and employment of migrant workers, who tend to be
more vulnerable to loss of employment and wages during an
economic crisis in a host country.
Remittance flows are expected to fall across all World Bank
Group regions, most notably in Europe and Central Asia (27.5
percent), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (23.1 percent), South
Asia (22.1 percent), the Middle East and North Africa (19.6
percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (19.3 percent), and
East Asia and the Pacific (13 percent).
The large decline in remittances flows in 2020 comes after
remittances to LMICs reached a record $554 billion in 2019.
Even with the decline, remittance flows are expected to
become even more important as a source of external financing
for LMICs as the fall in foreign direct investment is expected to
be larger (more than 35 percent).
In 2019, remittance flows to LMICs became larger than FDI, an
important milestone for monitoring resource flows to
developing countries.
“Those workers who remain to continue in the countries of
destination will be forced to work for slashed wages. This is
again a form of wage theft and it is also going to impact the
remittances,” Dilip said.
Dilip was responding to a query raised by William Gois,
Regional Coordinator of Migrant Forum in Asia at an online
panel discussion on "Transitional Justice: Towards “Building
Back Better” jointly organized by Manila-based Migrant Forum
in Asia (MFA), Delhi based Global Research Forum on
Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT) and Beirut-based
Regional Center for Refugees and Migrants (CCRM).
Wage Theft
Wage theft, the practice of employers failing to pay workers the
full wages to which they are legally entitled, is a widespread
and deep-rooted problem that directly harms millions of Asian
migrant workers each year.
Employers refusing to pay promised wages, paying less than
legally mandated minimums, failing to pay for all hours worked,
or not paying overtime premiums deprives working people of
billions of dollars annually. It leaves hundreds of thousands of
affected workers and their families in poverty.
Unfortunately, countries of destination and origin have begun
repatriation procedures of these workers, without any proper
redress mechanism, since courts and other labour dispute
mechanisms have also been closed during the period of the
lockdown.
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