Labour migration

The following section addresses three main groups for the measurement of ‘international labour mobility’: 

• the stock of international migrant workers;
• the stock of non-resident migrant workers;
• the flow of for-work migrants. 

International labour migration and international migrant workers

There is no internationally accepted statistical definition of international migrant workers for data collection. In order to identify the stock of international migrant workers, it is necessary to put together the concepts of international migration and labour force attachment or work-related reasons for migration (ILO, 2018). As noted in previous chapters, international migrants can be identified based on country of citizenship, country of birth, place of residence one or five years prior and period of arrival in country. When identifying migrant workers, emphasis is placed on country of citizenship as opposed to country of birth because it is more clearly tied to labour migration policies. The statistical definition of international labour migration can be based on: 

• being part of the labour force (including being unemployed);
• having work-related reasons for migration;
• holding a work permit; or past work experience abroad.

Examples of questions measuring the labour attachment of international migrants are provided below. 

Figure 1: Example of question on reasons for migration

Figure 2: Example of question on labour force participation 

(source: European Commission, 2019)

Figure 3: Example of question on labour force participation

(source: UK ONS, 2020)

For-work migrant workers

For-work migrants enter a country with the documented or stated objective of seeking or undertaking employment. Seeking or undertaking employment does not have to be the only reason for the entry, nor even the main reason – it suffices for it to be just one of the reasons if there are several reasons for the migration. To measure this group, the reasons for the move have to be recorded and tabulated in a way that enables identification of whether seeking or undertaking employment was one of the documented or stated reasons for the entry (ILO, 2018).

Return migrant workers

For the country of measurement, return international migrant workers are defined as all current residents of the country who were previously international migrant workers in another country or countries. The definition of return international migrant workers emphasizes previous labour attachment in another country; duration of time spent in country of labour attachment (minimum six months); and period of arrival in country of residence (usually less than five years ago but could be extended to ten). The measurement of return international migrant workers does not depend on the current labour force status of persons in the country of measurement, whereas the measurement of international migration workers does. Return international migrant workers also include current residents of the country of measurement who were working aboard without being usual residents of the destination country. It is recommended that the chosen minimum duration of labour attachment abroad for a person to be considered as a return international migrant worker be relatively short, such as six months. It is recommended that the reference period for the date of return (i.e., the maximum time elapsed since the return of the person to the country of measurement for them to be included in the stock of return international migrant workers in that country) should be relatively long, such as the last 12 months or last five years, or it may be left open and then classified by date of return (ILO, 2018).

Figure 4:

Figure 5: 

Turning to the potential sources of data on international migrant workers (including non-resident), for-work migrant workers and return migrant workers, the 20th ICLS Guidelines on Statistics of International Labour Migration (ILO, 2018) distinguish between the following sources of stock and flow data: 

1. sources generating stock statistics: population censuses; household surveys, in particular labour force surveys (especially relevant for certain groups, e.g. category 14(a) (usual residents) of international migrant workers); specialized migration and demographic surveys; surveys limited to, or focused on, particular populations or domains (such as surveys near international borders, surveys of refugee camps); and establishment census and sample surveys;
2. sources generating flow statistics: border registrations; statistics of residence permits issued; statistics of work permits issued, statistics of visas issued; departure registrations; and household surveys; 
3. sources that can generate both stock and flow statistics: population registers; household surveys, registers of foreigners; tax and social security registrations; and registrations for use of utilities (e.g. phone, electricity); 
4. other sources: certain groups of international migrant workers who are in need of international protection or vulnerable to exploitation, e.g., asylum seekers, irregular migrants, victims of trafficking or migrants working in the informal economy, may require special surveys with targeted samples due to their particular characteristics and circumstances. Appropriate administrative sources of data, where available, may supplement targeted sample surveys or may even serve as an alternative to such surveys. 

Data on international migrant workers

For identifying international migrant workers, non-resident foreign workers and residents working abroad, many countries rely on surveys, such as the ILO labour migration module that was integrated into the Labour Force Surveys of Moldova and Ukraine (ILO, 2017a). This survey includes different questionnaires aimed at:

• household members abroad at the time of enumeration;
• household members present at the time of enumeration;
• household members present at the time of enumeration but who have been abroad  in last 24 months.

Administrative sources can provide rich data on stocks and flows of international migrant workers. For example, data on international migrant workers can be obtained from work permits, however, there are several limitations to this data source. First, work permits often include workers’ dependents. Second, work permits can be renewed/extended which leads to “double-counting”. Finally, citizens from certain countries may not require work permits due to visa-free regimes. Better use of social security systems would provide more data not only about the number and characteristics of international migrant workers employed in different sectors, but also on aspects relating to health and safety, relative to nationals. Statistics derived from tax authorities, which might ask employers to report on information relating to their foreign workers might also be used.

Data on non-resident foreign workers

Potential data sources on non-resident foreign workers are administrative sources such as work permits and visas; employment documents; border cards or passenger surveys with questions on the purpose and duration of stay; and enterprise surveys. To capture non-resident foreign workers, destination countries might use data from the labour force surveys of origin countries. For example, to measure non-resident foreign workers, Israel uses the Palestinian labour force surveys and Italy proposes to examine the possibility of using labour force surveys from other EU countries (UNECE, 2018). From the destination country perspective, however, non‐resident foreigners are by definition outside the scope of their own conventional household surveys, which cover household members with usual residence in the country. Non‐resident foreign workers, however, may be captured through their workplace with appropriately designed establishment surveys.

Data on frontier and itinerant workers

Potential data sources on frontier and itinerant workers include time-location sampling (TLS) which is used to sample a population for which a sampling frame is not available or cannot be readily constructed, but locations are known at which the population of interest can be found, or for which it is more efficient to sample at those locations. For example, the sampling population is the border locations at different days or time of the day and the target population is the frontier workers or itinerant workers crossing those locations at those times. 

Data on migrants in the informal economy

Collecting data on migrants employed in the informal economy is more challenging. Informal employment is defined as any activity of persons to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit that is not covered by formal arrangements. This includes, for example, persons working in an informal household market whose activities are not registered for tax and social insurance, employees whose working situation is not defined in relation to the legal administrative framework of the country, or contributing family workers (ILO, 2023). Examples of informal workers are domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers (Vanek et al., 2012). Household income and expenditure surveys, in particular, are a potential source of statistics on the demand for goods and services produced in the informal sector, as they distinguish between formal and informal points of purchase. Micro-establishment or informal sector surveys are establishment surveys specifically designed to produce statistics about the informal economy. Informal sector surveys focus on unformal sector units that either operate in a single location or carry out one main activity as the key measurement unit. Mixed surveys, or combined multi-stage household and establishment surveys, are specifically designed to identify and target economic units in the informal sector (ILO, 2023). In the first phase of a mixed survey, a household survey is carried out in a specific area to identify informal sector entrepreneurs or households with informal sector entrepreneurs. These entities make up the sampling frame for the second phase, which is an enterprise survey of informal sector entrepreneurs or households with informal sector entrepreneurs (ILO, 2013).

Data on residents working abroad

International emigrant workers might be identified through population censuses and household surveys directed at household members who are currently abroad, were previously abroad or intend to move abroad. Border departure and arrival data might also provide further information on emigrant workers by including questions on the reasons for move and intended duration of stay, but citizens may not be subject to the same reporting requirements as foreigners. Only a small number of countries have registers of nationals who have been issued permits for work abroad. For example, in Norway, registers provide the main characteristics of all groups except residents working abroad, whereas the labour force survey provides additional variables on all groups except non-resident foreign workers. Norway therefore uses Swedish register data for statistics on their residents working in Sweden (UNECE, 2018).

Data on for-work migrant workers

For-work migrant workers might be identified through administrative data on work permits or through border cards, passenger surveys and household surveys with questions on the purpose of migration. The inflow of for-work migrants to the country might be gleaned through new work permits issued in recent years.

Where may global data on labour migration be found?

There are also several databases on labour migration at the global level. The ILO maintains an online database of labour statistics as well as a collection of labour force surveys (https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/). Indicators on labour migration are split into international migrant stock, nationals abroad, and international migrant flow. In addition, the ILO has produced the ILO Global Estimates on migrant workers for 2015, which provides global estimates, estimates by country income group, and regional estimates of migrant workers (ILO, 2015a). It is worth noting, however, that the informal economy is not fully captured by ILO Global Estimates, which may lead, for example, to under-estimating the labour force participation of migrant women in lower-income countries (IOM, 2023a). The Database on Immigrants in OECD and non-OECD Countries (DIOC) includes information on labour market outcomes, such as labour market status, occupations and sectors of activity but only covers the years 2000-2001, 2005-2006 and 2010-2011. The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series - International (IPUMS-I) - collects and distributes census data from 85 countries. The database includes population questions that address the labour force as well as LFS.

For policy purposes, data collection on labour migration may require information on migrant workers’ socio-economic profiles, working conditions and remittance behaviours. There are several international classifications and standards for these additional indicators.

Status in Employment

The International Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE) is the current international standard for statistics on employment relationships (ILO, 1993). It classifies jobs with respect to the type of explicit or implicit contract of employment between the job holder and the economic unit in which he or she is employed. It aims to provide the basis for the production of internationally comparable statistics on the employment relationship, including the distinction between salaried employment and self-employment.

Figure 6: Example of question on status in employment

(source: European Commission, 2019)

Economic activity

The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC, Rev.4) is maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division (UN DESA, 2008).  ISIC is a standard classification of economic activities arranged so that entities can be classified according to the activity they carry out. The activities of producing units are combined according to similarities in the character of the goods and services produced, the uses of the goods and services produced and the inputs, processes and technology of production.

Figure 7: ISIC Classification of economic activities

(source: ILO, 2018)

Occupation

For international comparability, occupations are typically grouped using the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) (ILO, 2007). ISCO is a tool for organizing jobs into a clearly defined set of groups according to the tasks and duties undertaken in the job. The major groups include: 

1. Managers;
2. Professionals;
3. Technicians and associate professionals;
4. Clerical support workers;
5. Service and sales workers;
6. Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers;
7. Craft and related trades workers;
8. Plant and machine operators, and assemblers;
9. Elementary occupations;
10. Armed forces occupations.

Education

Education systems vary a lot between countries. See for example the figure below, which illustrates that the average duration (in years) of each educational level or series or qualifications varies across the 133 countries surveyed. International data on education should therefore be based on a classification which proposes, for all countries of the world, sound criteria for the allocation of education programmes to levels which can be considered as comparable. The ISCED classification - International Standard Classification of Education - was developed by UNESCO in the mid-1970s and was first revised in 1997. The most recent version was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in November 2011 (UNESCO, 2011). The 2011 ISCED classifies educational attainment (i.e., the highest level of school completed or degree/programme obtained) as one of the following categories:

1. early childhood education;
2. primary education;
3. lower secondary education;
4. upper secondary education;
5. post-secondary non-tertiary education;
6. short-cycle tertiary education;
7. bachelor’s or equivalent;
8. master’s or equivalent;
9. and doctoral or equivalent.

Figure 8: average duration of ISCED levels by country

(Source: UNESCO, 2021)

Working Conditions

Working conditions might be captured through household or labour force survey questions on hourly earnings, written contracts, failed expectations or access to social services/benefits. Such information would shed light on whether migrant workers are being discriminated against, especially relative to citizens or whether they are at risk for human trafficking or other human rights violations. Hourly earnings are often used for calculating the pay gap between migrant and non-migrant or resident and non-resident workers. Absence of a written contract or failed expectations (e.g., withheld payments or different work) might be signs of (vulnerability to) exploitation.

Figure 9: Examples of questions on working conditions

(Source: ILO, 2015b)

Remittance behaviour

Information on migrant workers’ remittance behaviour would be useful for assessing the contribution of labour migration to local development and for designing policies aimed at enhancing the contribution of labour migration both to local development and the socio-economic advancement of migrants, their household and their community. Most banks collect balance of payment data, which would provide information on remittances. However, official data on remittance behaviour are believed to be underestimated as most remittance source countries do not require reporting of small transactions and remittance flows through money transfer agencies and informal channels (hand carried) are not reflected in official statistics. 

One of the best ways to estimate remittances and their impact is through household surveys that compare household expenditures between migrant and non-migrant households. A better understanding of migrant households’ financial situation (e.g., possession of a bank account) would enable banks to tap into the remittance market and provide more services to migrant households such as business, education and mortgage loans. Furthermore, it is important to know whether remittances are being spent on consumption or being invested.

Available remittance data do not reflect important gender data gaps in remittance earning, sending methods and consumption practices and there is limited information about the remittance behaviours of people with diverse gender identities (IOM, 2021a). The World Bank’s migration and remittances data, which include data sets on global migration stocks and remittances, does not disaggregate by sex, even though evidence suggests that women tend to remit a larger portion of their earnings than men. Furthermore, additional data is needed to understand the contribution of diasporas to development beyond remittances (e.g., cultural and political capital, tourism, philanthropy, investments, etc.) (IOM, 2023a)

Figure 10: Examples of questions on remittance behaviour

(Source: ILO, 2017a)