Avast Ye Furriners! Arab Spring and 'Saudization'

One of the more interesting angles that migration researchers have focused on in recent years has been that of South-South migration. While the common perception we have of economic migration is of those from developing countries travelling to developed countries, about half of all migration occurs between developing countries themselves. That is, there are gradations of economic development and opportunity between, say, Ukraine and Russia or Bangladesh and India.

It is well-known that workers with various skill levels ranging from Sri Lankan construction workers at one end to British bankers at the other have travelled to the Middle East in droves over several decades. Aside from providing manpower that relatively small countries there lack, they provide technical expertise not necessarily found among Mideast elites. Right? Well, maybe not for so much longer. As the Arab Spring seems to be demonstrating, there is a lack of employment opportunities for Arab youth in many of the MENA countries, often resulting in outpourings of negative sentiment against monarchical classes. But, it also poses the question of how much citizens of these countries would tolerate '3D'-type jobs: difficult, dangerous or dirty.

As a student of regional integration schemes, one of the common refrains you get from the Gulf Cooperation Council is to hire less foreign workers and employ more locals. Like in other regions, skilled migration that aims to keep talent within the Middle East is a common objective. Here is a typical example:

Implementing the Supreme Council’s resolution in the previous session with regard to employment of the national work force, and in order to facilitate their mobility from one Member State to another; and with a view to increasing the job opportunities for the GCC citizens and to nationalize jobs in the various sectors, and to achieve coordination among the Member States in this field, the Supreme Council approved the views of the Consultative Commission in this regard. The Council decided to assign the Consultative Commission with the task of undertaking an evaluation of the process of joint action in the field of economy, asking it to present its views in the 21st session of the Supreme Council.

Again, it seems the Arab Spring has spurred efforts to employ more locals. Take Saudi Arabia, for instance. For years and years, Saudi Arabia has been among the top destinations for Filipino migrants. While they have a fairly vast range of skill levels, Philippine employment authorities are keeping a close eye on lower-skilled migration in particular as a programme of 'Saudization' takes place. Various news outlets have bandied about massive figures on how much Saudi powers-that-be are spending to buy off dissent and discontent; some say this amounts to up to $130 billion. But, aside from that massive sum, how do you create a more sustainable way of dealing with pent-up demand for domestic employment? Answer: you finally deliver on promises to hire fewer foreigners and more nationals. From the Philippine Star:

The implementation of the new hiring policy in Saudi Arabia, also known as the “Saudization” program, may displace 90,000 low-skilled workers, the Department of Labor and Employment said yesterday. Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the Philippine government is assessing the impact of the new policy on Filipino workers employed by small establishments.

The Saudi Labor Ministry is classifying 300,000 local companies into four categories: excellent and green (complying companies), and yellow and red (non-complying companies). Local firms will be required to hire a minimum number of Saudi citizens. The categorization is expected to be completed on Aug. 30.

Baldoz assured Filipinos employed in Saudi that the government is prepared to act on the challenge of the new policy. She said the Philippine labor offices in the kingdom are educating Filipino workers on the impact of the program.

So they're even going to colour-code firms based on certain hiring criteria of Saudis--the exact formula is not exactly known. (There's also the assertion of Philippine central bankers that many of those heading to Saudi Arabia are now more highly-skilled to contend with.) However, one thing I will readily concede is that there is likely a sizeable number of young unemployed locals. Arab News offers this take on 'Saudization':

Saudi Arabia announced Sunday new plans to intensify the Saudization of jobs in private companies as part of efforts to reduce the unemployment rate. According to official statistics, there are more than 448,000 Saudi jobseekers, including women, in a country with eight million expatriate workers.

Labor Minister Adel Fakieh said private companies would be classified into green, yellow and red categories considering their performance in the Saudization of jobs. “We have set out new standards to assess the employment of Saudis in private firms. We have differentiated between companies that have achieved high Saudization rates and those refusing to employ Saudis,” he said.

He said companies in the red category would be prevented from renewing work visas of their expatriate workers while companies in the green category would be allowed to select foreign workers in the other two categories and transfer their sponsorship without the approval of theirs employers.

Fakieh said the new Saudization plan has been designed to keep most private companies in the green category and considering the reality of the labor market. He said details of additional incentives given to Saudization-friendly green companies would be announced on June 11 on the ministry’s website.

It's not as if Saudization hasn't been tried before. Yet the aforementioned payments and wage hikes aside, the events currently engulfing the Gulf seems to have forced the Saudi authorities' hand in a more pronounced fashion:

The new measures came after Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah set up a high-level ministerial committee to find a quick way to employ the growing number of graduates in public and private sectors. The king increased the minimum salary of Saudis to SR3,000 and ordered payment of a SR2,000 monthly allowance for the jobless.

Fakieh acknowledged that the real number of the unemployed could be higher than 448,000, because of the increasing number of Saudi university graduates. He also pointed out that about six million of the country’s eight million expatriates work in the private sector. “These expatriate workers cost the Kingdom SR98 billion annually in terms of transfer of salaries to accounts in their respective countries,” the minister said. “They also put additional pressure on the country’s infrastructure and service sectors.”

Fakieh said there was a five-percent annual rise in the number of expatriate workers, which is double the size of annual Saudi population increase. “This increase of expatriates is causing imbalance in the job market and preventing Saudis to get jobs in private companies. Most companies prefer to employ expatriates as they are ready to accept low salaries,” he pointed out.

He said the new measures were taken as previous Saudization plans were not successful due to various reasons. Saudis working in private companies do not exceed more than 10 percent of the total workforce. He also pointed out that 84 percent of expatriate workers carry only secondary school certificates, adding that these unskilled expatriates could be replaced by Saudis gradually.

Fakieh said companies who had poor Saudization record would be given a time limit to change the situation before preventing them from enjoying the new facilities and incentives. “Saudization has become a national necessity rather than a choice,” the minister said, adding that it would boost the economy.

My question is simple and hearkens back to what I stated earlier: given that many of the jobs on offer will be to of the '3D' difficult, dangerous or dirty variety, what guarantee is there that Saudi nationals will readily fill these posts when foreigners will no longer be allowed to occupy them? For instance, the burgeoning number of university graduates is mentioned, but wouldn't they be seeking white-collar employment more than low-skilled work?

As they say, it's very much a work in progress.

If EMU is Muddled, What More EU Migration Policy?

If you think discord in economic coordination and monitoring are rife in the EU--Greece, Ireland and Portugal are really forcing these issues--what more migration? A side effect of the various uprisings in the Middle East is a steady stream of migrants heading northward to find better lives. This in addition to folks from newly integrated EU states and those from farther afield seeking opportunities in wealthier countries (like myself, for instance) and you have similar issues of discord among EU nations. Those on the Mediterranean are obviously sensitive as literally first ports of call. Wealthier countries relay their wariness about welcoming "different" folks. Newer members are perhaps not as vigilant about patrolling EU borders since migrants just transit through them. And so on and so forth.

The end result of many different countries having uncoordinated migration policies and a lot of punting on the issue at the European Union itself is as you'd imagine. IP Global, the German Council of Foreign Relations, offers a fairly downbeat assessment:

There are enormous challenges to be addressed before the EU has a coherent and legitimate migration policy. First, the approach to the legislation is still too piecemeal. Measures are needed on all aspects of labor migration, not just the highly skilled. The Commission proposed a general labor migration direction in 2001, but it was rejected by member states and withdrawn. Various other measures have been suggested and even passed, such as a measure on migrant workers’ rights and another on seasonal workers—but overreaching structures are lacking. Second, the legislation that has been adopted tends to have far too many coercive elements such as integration conditions as a mechanism to restrict family reunification or long periods of detention permissible for the purpose of expelling a person. Detention conditions vary among member states. In one case that went to court in Luxembourg, a man was held in a high security prison for more than 18 months while the authorities sought to expel him. Third, the measures adopted in the asylum field have not resulted in the convergence of protection for individuals in similar situations in different member states, and are already under sharp criticism by the European Court of Human Rights for their failure to protect people from destitution and provide them with legal remedies. In short, the system is neither coherent nor effective, and it is not fully in compliance with human rights standards.

One may well ask why this situation has occurred after more than 12 years of developing the system. One possible answer is that there has been too much influence on the process by a small group of member state officials from interior ministries with a specifically exclusionary vision of the movement of people across borders. Away from the tempering influence of other ministries at the national level, specifically foreign affairs and social affairs ministries, these officials at the EU level have succeeded in promoting coercive measures which perhaps would not have succeeded at the national level.

Given European demographic trends, even more strenuous debate over the "fourth freedom" of migration after those for the movement of goods, services and investment is inevitable.

Mexico Norte: Futbol & Hispanicization of the USA

CONCACAF should be ashamed of itself. I think it was a f***ing disgrace that the entire post-match ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your ass if we were in Mexico City it wouldn't be all in English - Team USA goalkeeper Tim Howard after losing to Mexico 4-2 in Los Angeles during the Gold Cup

Sour grapes, Howard? This assertion is untrue. Watch the footage. Yet I suppose I too would be miffed if I allowed my toughest rivals four unanswered goals. Race riots aside, something that really blows apart the myth of the United States as a melting pot is when the Mexican national football (soccer) team El Tricolor plays its United States counterpart on the latter's home soil. Team USA is booed and jeered lustily, often by US residents with roots south of the border. Where's the love of country? It's not an isolated incident as this phenomenon has been going on for years, posing an interesting sociological question of where Chicano loyalties lie. With Hispanics accounting for over half of US population growth, these dynamics invite further examination.

The CONCACAF Gold Cup is a biennial regional competition for top football bragging rights among countries in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Whatever the tournament, though--friendlies, qualifiers, and whatever else have you--the oddly enduring sight of Team USA being booed on home soil remains when matched up against El Tricolor . And so it was for this year's Gold Cup finals matchup. Despite taking an early 2-0 lead, Team USA was eventually overcome by a Mexican side featuring the emerging star Chicharito (of Manchester United fame) at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, urged on by strong home away from home support. It was not a pretty scene for the gringos as most of the 93,420 attendees were for El Tri. From the LA Times:

It was imperfectly odd. It was strangely unsettling. It was uniquely American. On a balmy early Saturday summer evening, the U.S soccer team played for a prestigious championship in a U.S. stadium…and was smothered in boos. Its fans were vastly outnumbered. Its goalkeeper was bathed in a chanted obscenity.

Even its national anthem was filled with the blowing of air horns and bouncing of beach balls. Most of these hostile visitors didn't live in another country. Most, in fact, were not visitors at all, many of them being U.S. residents whose lives are here but whose sporting souls remain elsewhere. Welcome to another unveiling of that social portrait known as a U.S.-Mexico soccer match, streaked as always in deep colors of red, white, blue, green...and gray.

With loyal "Americans" like these, who needs furriners?

Even when the U.S. scored the first two goals, the Mexico cheers stayed strong, perhaps inspiring El Tri to four consecutive goals against a U.S. team that seemed dazed and confused. Then when it ended, and the Mexican players had danced across the center of the field in giddy wonder while the U.S. players had staggered to the sidelines in disillusionment, the madness continued.

Because nobody left. Rather amazingly, the Mexico fans kept bouncing and cheering under headbands and sombreros, nobody moving an inch, the giant Rose Bowl jammed for a postgame trophy ceremony for perhaps the first time in its history. And, yes, when the U.S. team was announced one final time, it was once again booed.

A long time ago, I tagged along with a Mexican-American friend to visit San Antonio from Houston (two increasingly Hispanicized cities themselves). Despite subsequently serving for the US military and one of those nefarious private security contractors besides in Iraq--the very definition of an ugly American to many--I will never forget his narrative explanation of a key event in US history. While diehard gringos know the battle cry of "Remember the Alamo" by heart, he simply said "We kicked their ass" without a trace of irony.

There are certainly reasons you can point to as to why this undercurrent of Chicano resentment keeps bubbling to the surface. Certainly, sporting events can be venues where latent discontent is manifested. Latinos are often discriminated against as "illegals" even if they are not. Discriminatory legislation is often bandied about as a result. There's also the fact that those of Mexican descent have had a more difficult time economically than others in this supposed melting pot.

Likely, many Latin Americans believe that they moved to "America" due to economic necessity and not out of any great abiding loyalty to a country presumptuous enough to name itself after two vast continents. With the US economy increasingly down in the dumps, this instrumental justification grows more specious. As the land of opportunity becomes more of a curse, expect even more overt displays of anti-American sentiment from this increasingly large yet often marginalized group. Yes, Team USA versus Mexico in the US of A with the former getting booed may portend similar dynamics on a larger scale.

Some parting thoughts:

• Football (soccer) as a popular sport in the US is still a faraway dream despite considerable grassroots participation judging from indifference to Team USA in "international" competition;
• Mexican-Americans have seriously divided loyalties;
  
• A supposed reason for the sport's prospects in the United States is its growing Hispanic population. But, if much of this population more or less throws the finger at the home team and cheers on Mexico, well, you can figure that one out;
• To remedy these unedifying spectacles, apparently clueless organizers Stateside should try to hold these competitions in states like Maine--the most homogeneous state with a 95% white population. New Jersey won't quite do. While the crowd is almost certain to be smaller, holding these events in border states is just asking for it;
• "Founding Fathers"-style national myths need reconsideration in this day and age given that Anglos will be the minority in not that many years.

I can certainly sympathize. It's pretty bad to hear "Yankee Go Home!" all over the world to come home and find that, gee, you're not welcome there either. What this phenomenon bodes for the United States is certainly an interesting question. Strangers in your own land--some melting pot, eh, muchachos?

Turkish EU Accession or Why I Miss Strauss-Kahn

Well sort of. I've just come from an event hosted by our research centre (LSE IDEAS) on "Turkey In the World" discussing that country's foreign policy. Straddling Orient and Occident, religiosity and secularism as well as several other divides, let's just say Turkey needs to contend with forces pulling it in different ways. Professor Sevket Pamuk of LSE and Fadi Hakura of Chatham House gave a most interesting talk about the subject matter. Being LSE IDEAS' resident migration issues guy, I just had to ask whether Turkey's diminished prospects for EU accession at the current time are temporary based on souring European sentiment. That is, when times turn bad, migrants are usually made the scapegoats.

My line of argument goes like this: France and Germany have been the most active blockers of Turkish EU accession by not opening several chapters of the acquis communautaire to the country. Generally speaking, conservative politicians alike the UMP's Nicolas Sarkozy and the CDU's Angela Merkel disdain migration. Hence, the fear of being overwhelmed by Muslims looms large in the popular imagination if not in reality as Turkey does accept that migration limits would be an unavoidable component of its accession conditions. At best, Sarkozy and Merkel may be the lesser of two evils in co-opting some of the more extreme anti-migrant sentiment emanating from far-right voices in France (Marine Le Pen) and Germany (Udo Voigt). At worst, they are capitalizing on barely concealed racism.

The question for me is if eventual change in leadership to more left-leaning parties in France and Germany would remove this roadblock which has emerged in recent years to Turkish accession. Well guess what: my hopes may have been another victim of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's rather appalling indiscretions. Prior to his New York imbroglio, he was the only member of France's Socialist Party to openly champion Turkish EU accession. With some polls indicating that he would have beaten Sarkozy in 2012, you can figure out what that means for Turkish EU accession prospects. From a 2004 FT article:

Mr Strauss-Kahn also weighed into the debate over Turkey saying the country had a "calling" to join the EU. "If the European Union hopes to play its part, it should take responsibility for the whole of the zone from which its culture and civilisation originated: the north of Europe as well as the Mediterranean. I cannot see it lasting in setting up a sort of barrier in the Strait of Gibraltar and in the Bosphorus," he said.

His comments came a day after Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president, called for the EU to limit links with Turkey to a "privileged partnership".

Ouch! Fadi Hakura does point out though that fading interest in Turkey joining the EU at the current time is mutual (though others are more optimistic). Certainly the troubles of peripheral European states are not exactly an inviting prospect for observers on the Turkish side. Still, it begs the question: are the foibles of DSK alike those of Bill Clinton forgiveable in light of their leadership abilities and vision? The latter found (eventual) redemption; the former may not given that the hour is getting late for him.

Migrants Agree America Stinks, H-1B Visa Edition

Let's have a look at some figures that indicate the relative attractiveness of the United States as a destination for economic migrants at the current time. Sometime ago I wrote about Chicago School economist Gary Becker's plan to charge foreigners $50,000 for the privilege of America citizenship [whoopee!] Or, more accurately, the privilege of being saddled with $14.3 trillion in US debt with far more to come--a significant part of which will likely be owed to countries they brainlessly left in the first place. I'm proud not to be American, for at least I know I'm free from being a debt slave to the grind.

Anyway, I have been a keen follower of migration trends in general--especially under the H-1B visa category for skilled workers AKA the "green card." See my previous post on the matter. In previous years, the cap of 65,000 eligible petitions would be filled literally within days of becoming available. Since the subprime crisis, though, let's say many have come to their senses and began contemplating a number of things:

1. There are more jobs to be found in India and previous H-1B-heavy sending countries than America at the current time;
2. The United States is scaring away productive migrants with its heavy-handed post 9/11 tactics;
3. American employers are hard up;
   
4. America is an increasingly unattractive destination due to its ever-declining global standing.

The Economic Times has a pretty good article relating how Indian IT professionals have become, as The Clash once sang, so bored with the USA. Like during the past two years, H-1B is drawing flies once again this year:

The H-1B visa, the most sought after by India. IT professionals has opened to a lackluster response, with less than 6,000 applications received after it opened on April 1...US businesses use the H-1B programme to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields, such as scientists, engineers, or computer programmers.

The H-1B cap for the fiscal 2011 was reached in January this year and on December 22 for the fiscal 2010. Till a few years ago the cap was reached within the first few days of USCIS starting to accept H-1B petitions. As a result, USCIS had to resort to computerized draw of lots to determine successful applicants.

Because of stringent monitoring provisions and general economic recession, there has been a sharp drop in the number of Indian receiving H-1B visas in the last few years, official figures reveal. For instance the Infosys which received as many as 4,559 H-1B visas in the fiscal 2008 and was on top of the list of companies receiving this coveted work visa for professionals; received just 440 H-1B visas in the fiscal 2009 (October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009), according to the latest figures released by the US immigration services. Similarly, Wipro, which in 2008 got 2,678 H-1B visas, received just 1,964 H-1B visas in 2009; but still topped the list in the fiscal 2009.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) figures pretty much back up this trend as April draws to a close:

If skilled (read: smarter-than-average) migration under H-1B is a useful barometer for the attractiveness of living in America a decade into the twenty-first century, consider it a big "NO." I hope Gary Becker, Nobel Prize winner in Economics, can understand what the supply and demand curves imply here for his far-fetched ideas. Framed properly, it's a matter of paying migrants to come and work in America (land of the bankrupt) given their ever-dwindling appetite for doing so. As the title of this post says, smarter migrants agree America stinks by simply not going there. Face it: nobody's beating a path to America's door. And it should read:

Attracting the best and brightest? You must be joking.

World Bank Lends for Worker Repatriation from Libya

Well this is a somewhat newer form of lending that just shows you the increasing prominence of migration not only in the headlines but in development work in general. Once more, it seems our friends from Bangladesh have felt the brunt of global events. If there is a country that has been terribly unlucky with fate practically from its very inception, it's Bangladesh.

Unfortunately, no one should be surprised that many of our Bangladeshi colleagues find themselves stuck amidst an ongoing conflict in Libya. Unlike, say, the Philippines with its comparatively sizeable apparatus for handling economic migration, the public management of migration flows is less formal in Bangladesh. To help resolve matters, the country has now been granted loans by the World Bank's concessional lending arm the International Development Association (IDA) to fund repatriation from Libya. While nearly half are now safely home, some 36,000 or so remain in Libya:

The World Bank today approved $40 million for the Repatriation and Livelihood Restoration for Migrant Workers Project in support to the Government of Bangladesh for repatriation of its migrant workers escaping the ongoing conflict in Libya. In addition to bringing them back to their home country, the project will provide a one-time cash grant to help returning migrant workers meet immediate needs.

“Migrant laborers have contributed mightily to sustained growth and development in Bangladesh. Their remittances fuel domestic investments throughout the country and boost consumption to alleviate poverty,” said Ellen Goldstein, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh. “It is fitting that Government would support them in their time of need, and the World Bank is pleased to be able to respond to Government's request for support within just a few weeks’ time.”

Libya has been a host-country for migrant workers from Bangladesh as well as from other countries in South Asia, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. An estimated 70,000-80,000 Bangladeshis were working in Libya before the crisis of which about 34,000 have since returned due to the security concerns.

The project will finance part of the cost of transport of returnees and provide a one-time $775 cash grant following their return to support their immediate needs while additional donor funds will help returning workers seek available employment opportunities.

“The crisis has created a very serious situation requiring humanitarian support by the international community,” Bernice Van Bronkhorst, Project Team Leader said. “For those who have only recently migrated, this crisis has not only rendered them penniless but heavily indebted. The project is designed to help them get back on their feet. ”

The $74.1 million project is supported by a $40.0 million World Bank Credit in conjunction with a government contribution of $4.6 million and $29.5 million by donors through the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which will implement the project on behalf of the Government of Bangladesh.

The credits from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s concessionary lending arm carries a maturity of 40 years with a 10-year grace period with a 0.75 percent service fee.

It's a sign of the times, I guess. Development concerns are a-changing, and migration is one of the more prominent items on today's checklist.

More Research on Remittances from the US

Despite its obviously more limited prospects for international workers at the current time, the United States remains the world's largest source of workers' remittances--especially to nearby Latin America. It is thus with no small interest that I've been flipping through this new Congressional Budget Office report Migrants' Remittances and Related Economic Flows. For those of you interested in migration in general or are into area studies, this should be worth a look.

What follows is the summary, though the rest is well worth reading if the subject matter catches your fancy:

Migrants to the United States often send money to people in their home country or take it with them when they return home. Those transfers can involve sending money through banks or other institutions to family members or others in the home country, making financial investments in the home country, or returning to the home country while retaining bank accounts or claims on other financial assets in the United States. All three types of actions are similar in their economic effects, even though only transfers of money through banks and other financial institutions to foreign individuals are commonly thought of as migrants' remittances.

As one of the most important destinations of global migration, the United States is the largest national source of remittances. The opportunity to send or bring remittances home is one of the important motivations for migration, and policies that affect migration to the United States could affect outflows of remittances. In turn, the flow of remittances can affect economic growth, labor markets, poverty rates, and future migration rates in the United States as well as in recipient countries.

This document updates and expands upon the Congressional Budget Office's previous analysis of remittances—Remittances: International Payments by Migrants (May 2005)—and presents data through 2009. The new presentation provides a better view of people's total transfers of money between the United States and other countries but, because of changes in the way the data are collected and reported, does not provide as much information as was previously available on the portion of those transfers that is attributable to migrants. (See "Notes and Definitions" at the beginning of the full document for a summary of terminology and the appendix for a discussion of recent changes in the classification of remittances.) The existing data on global remittances and related economic flows are not of very high quality, and the comparisons and trends reported here should be viewed only as approximations.

A constant theme among reports of this kind is that "data on migration and remittances are patchy." You would hope that nations can get together and figure out better ways to track movements of persons and their monies as globalization continues apace.

Mideast Migrant Spillover II: UK; Italy v France

On my walk home from work, I regularly pass by the statue of Bernard "Monty" Montgomery--a British war hero whose exploits in the desert sands made him famous. So, I just wanted to make a follow-up post on what I wrote on the "Pottery Barn" effect of European countries becoming involved (so there, I avoided using the word "intervention") in the Middle East / North Africa. We have two stories here. On a positive note, the land of Monty--Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein to be exact--appears to be returning to the desert in a big way. No, the UK isn't confronting Erwin Rommel's successor. Rather, it's supporting a ragtag army of rebels going up against the erstwhile Gadhafi regime. Given its involvement in the conflict, it's good the UK at least recognizes an obligation to evacuate the worst affected:

The UK is to help free 5,000 migrants trapped by fighting in western Libya, the UK's international development secretary has said. Andrew Mitchell said funds of £1.5m would pay to charter ships to get people out of the rebel-held town of Misrata and provide medical supplies. The minister is in New York attending a UN meeting to discuss the humanitarian situation in Libya.

Aid workers and Misrata residents have said the situation there is "dire". They have reported shortages of food, power, water and medicine, as forces loyal to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi intensify their shelling of the city. The BBC's Barbara Plett, reporting from the United Nations, said some of the most desperate were thousands of migrant workers from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.

Mr Mitchell said Britain would help fund their evacuation in ships chartered by the International Organization for Migration. Further funds would go towards the International Medical Corps (IMC) to provide medical aid for those caught up in violence across western Libya, he added. The money comes from the department's humanitarian aid funds.

On a negative note, however, Italy's plan to let the migrant overflow from MENA go to neighbouring EU countries has not gone down well with the others to no one's real surprise. Given that France's desert involvement exceeds that of Italy, it's highly questionable why France tries to wall itself off from refugees coming from Italy. Let's first recount France's resurrection of borders in the post-EU age:

The migration wave unleashed by North African unrest has prompted France to resurrect its border with Italy—a barrier that was supposedly consigned to history's dustbin with Europe's unified economy.

A couple of miles from the beach town of Ventimiglia, nestled along the Italian Riviera, French police have restaffed a formerly abandoned checkpoint along the country's Mediterranean border with Italy. In the nearby French town of Menton, French police in riot gear board trains crossing into France, grilling passengers while other police forces are monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory from Italy.

The operation is part of France's attempt to stop a wave of North African migrants who, having fled violence back home, regard Italy as a way station as they travel by boat, train and foot toward jobs and family in French cities. More than 700 migrants who have crossed into French territory via Italy have been detained by French police and escorted back, Italian officials said.

More recently, the Italians have lodged a diplomatic protest against the French over the matter. Towards a common EU migration policy? You must be joking:

A train carrying Tunisian immigrants from Italy was halted at the French border Sunday in an escalation of an international dispute over the fate of North African migrants fleeing political unrest for refuge in Europe. But France blamed what it said were hundreds of activists on the train planning a demonstration in France, and posing a problem to public order. Traffic was re-established by evening - but not before Italy lodged a formal protest.

“At no time was there a ... closing of the border between France and Italy,” French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet said. It was an “isolated problem,” he said by telephone, “an undeclared demonstration. He estimated that up to 10 trains may have been affected, five on each side...

Italy has been giving temporary residence permits to many of the roughly 26,000 Tunisians who have gone to Italy to escape unrest in northern Africa in recent weeks. Many of the Tunisians have family ties or friends in France, the country’s former colonial ruler, and the Italian government says the permits should allow the Tunisians to go there under accords allowing visa-free travel among many European countries.

Dreams of a borderless Europe are fading as the French have come up with this excuse that activists were also on the train planning public disorder there. Let's see how long that excuse holds up as these inflows will certainly not come to a rapid halt:

France says it will honor the permits only if the migrants prove they can financially support themselves and it has instituted patrols on the Italian border - unprecedented since the introduction of the Schengen travel-free zone - bringing in about 80 riot police last week. Germany has said it would do the same. A spokesman for the Italian rail company, Maurizio Furia, told The Associated Press in Rome that the train carrying migrants and political activists who support them wasn’t allowed to pass into Menton, France, from the border station of Ventimiglia on Sunday.

Italy lodged a protest with the French government, calling the move “illegitimate and in clear violation of general European principles” the Italian Foreign Ministry said. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini ordered his envoy in Paris “to express the strong protest of the Italian government...”

“We have given the migrants travel documents, and we gave everything (else) that is needed, and the European Commission recognized that, it has said that Italy is following the Schengen rules,” Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said in an interview on Italy’s Sky TG24 TV. Visa-“free travel is legitimate for all those with the papers and who want to go to France,” said Maroni, a top official of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, a main coalition partner of Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

To which we now arrive at the main problem of Sarkozy himself. Despite backing all sorts of uprisings in MENA, he also adopts an anti-immigration rhetoric. Are freedom of speech and association incompatible with freedom of movement? That's what I would like to ask President Sarkozy as further blowback from mucking about in his backyard is imminent:

While he has robustly backed pro-democracy movements in the Arab world, triggered by the Tunisian uprising, conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy is also trying to cut back on the number of migrants arriving in France, whose former colonies in North Africa already provide the majority of immigrants.

With muscular rhetoric must come deeds that back them up. One avenue is to promote sufficient stability and development in MENA states that reduces pressures to immigrate. I am certainly unsure whether European efforts at nation building will succeed where those of the Americans failed. Remember that the Europeans have a longstanding colonial history there and are bound to invite suspicion. Moreover, remember who preceded the Americans in Vietnam--an eventual economic success story...after the white people finally gave up and let the "freedom-hating" Communists have a go. (Is there a lesson in here somewhere?)

Until then, Sarkozy's lip service for freedom of speech and association will sit ill at ease with the French government's hardline policies on freedom of movement.

Bailout Fatigue, Casual Racism & EU Tea Parties

For obvious reasons, yours truly is particularly attuned to shifting political sentiment towards migration here in Europe. Earlier on, I had a post on the electoral gains made by parties with openly xenophobic agendas. Sour times breed sour sentiments; that much is obvious. While far-right parties are worrisome, I've previously thought that mainstream parties co-opting this message in a more offhand manner is actually more dangerous. Here in Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron is no stranger to stirring this particular pot. For instance, he like Germany's Angela Merkel has declared multiculturalism dead while not grasping what it means to begin with. Now, he his stated intention to reduce migration to the tens of thousands has prompted a rebuke by his Lib Dem coalition partner Business Secretary Vince Cable that Cameron risked inflaming extremism.

While the UK is not as big on the European financial stage as Germany for the obvious reason of not being in the Eurozone, both share the burden of bailing out various ailing European nations. And so it has proven that these, alike many other countries asked to pony up emergency funds, are experiencing unrest among restless natives weary of bailouts. By not condemning migration baiting but actually giving it lip service when it suits, mainstream parties may be opening the door to the rise of extreme right outfits as what I call casual racism against immigrants is mainstreamed. The earlier diagram in the first link above aside, we may see the rise of extremism through the ostensibly "friendlier" guise of anti-EU sentiment:

Chroniclers of Europe’s populist fringe have long focused on the anti-immigration rhetoric of many of these parties, particularly the National Front in France and Mr Wilders’ Dutch Freedom party. But many, such as Mr Soini in Finland or Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever, have either shunned or played down their anti-foreigner roots and re-branded themselves for the economically angry mainstream. Softening her party’s hard-edge approach to race and immigration helped Marine Le Pen, the sunnier face of her father’s [Dominique Le Pen] angry French nationalism, woo white working-class voters disillusioned with Mr Sarkozy’s economic policies.

We are witnessing Europe’s own Tea Party moment. Like Barack Obama, US president, leaders of European nations with the might to rescue a continent from crisis are hamstrung by voters who have had enough bailing out others. Much like Mr Obama, these leaders are having a hard time figuring out how to win voters back. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has shown just enough solidarity to help the eurozone but her begrudging approach has only heightened popular resentment at profligate southerners.

I must admit it's getting pretty ugly out here in old Europe for us non-EU, non-white folks. While the LSE churns out among the most desirable of international graduates in the UK, persistent negativity about their contributions to the British economy as either students or workers later on is not encouraging. If the purported cream of the crop is being told to go, who'll remain?

As for me, it's probably time to move on.

Euro Mideast Intervention = Own the Refugees?

We've heard this story before. Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell is usually credited for applying the Pottery Barn principle to foreign intervention. For international readers, Pottery Barn is a housewares retailer in the US. Instead of breaking what the Brits call "crockery," Powell asserts that breaking a country results in the interventionist taking responsibility for the "broken" country. Among these, of course, are its people.

Alike the quarrels over a two-speed Eurozone with stalwart countries alike Germany and the Netherlands outperforming their southerly peers, we appear to have something of another North-South divide in dealing with crumbling Middle East / North African states. Just as there is no "one-size-fits all" policy rate, there may be no pan-EU migration policy as countries bordering the Mediterranean are inundated with refugees. So, as some European heads of states act as cheerleaders for "the spread of democracy" and some actively participate in armed intervention, they have another hot topic for integration on their hands. The Italians in particular are keen on passing refugees through to other European states. What's Italy to do with the 23,000 or so who've landed on Lampedusa? From the New York Times:

Since the global financial crisis, the European Union has been deeply divided over economic policy. With the Libya intervention, it has split over foreign policy. But today few issues are proving more divisive within the bloc than immigration. That much was clear this week, when the fractious 27-member European Union rejected Italy’s idea to make it easier for immigrants who first land in Italy to travel elsewhere in Europe. At a time when a wave of immigrants fleeing the unrest in North Africa shows no signs of abating, the rejection raised the possibility of tightened intra-European border controls for the first time since visa-free travel was introduced in the 1990s.

Frustrations have been building here for weeks, and over the weekend Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi finally said enough was enough. Visiting the Italian island of Lampedusa, the point of entry for thousands of North African immigrants to Europe, he said: “Either Europe is something that’s real and concrete or it isn’t. And in that case, it’s better to go back to each going our own way and letting everyone follow his own policies and egotism.”

Mr. Berlusconi’s statement, echoed by other members of his government and criticized by his European counterparts, highlighted a looming showdown within Europe over how to handle the 23,000 migrants who have arrived in Italy since January. Fears of immigrants, fanned by right-wing parties and voter discontent over economic malaise, have deepened already profound divisions within Europe. Experts say the issue is proving to be at least as problematic — and potentially as destabilizing — as Europe’s struggle to manage a succession of financial crises. And it adds a new source of friction over NATO’s intervention in Libya.

The majority of Africans seeking work or refuge in Europe are Tunisians, but a growing number are sub-Saharan Africans fleeing Libya. To reduce tensions in the makeshift tent camps in Italy where officials shipped the migrants who first arrived on Lampedusa, Italian officials said they would issue temporary residence permits to qualified migrants.

Italy had asked fellow European Union member states to recognize the permits as valid for entry — essentially condoning the migrants’ passage to France and beyond. At a meeting of European Union interior ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, other member states, chief among them France and Germany, said no. In response, Italy’s interior minister, Roberto Maroni, asked, “I wonder if it makes sense to stay in the European Union?”

While European neighbors have criticized the Italians for their poor handling of the immigration situation, the stalwarts of Mr. Maroni’s Northern League party, known for its anti-immigrant stance and fierce Euro-skepticism, have criticized the interior minister for not being tough enough.

Will bribing the states refugees want to flee work? I have my doubts, but some Europeans apparently hope so:

Instead, Europe’s policy has been to hope that immigrants will not come and to try to persuade North African nations to compel their citizens to stay home. Although the collapse of governments in Tunisia and Egypt and the unrest in Libya have undone a variety of bilateral treaties with European countries, including agreements on migration, that policy is still in place.

Expanding the pottery barn argument, I suppose it becomes a valid question of who broke these MENA countries. Is it the "EU," its more busybody states, even "NATO"? The answer points to both the fate of supranational migration policy and the aftermath of these conflicts in terms of handling refugee flows.

Would You Stay in Libya as a Nurse for More Pay?

The Philippines is widely recognized as one of the world's top labour exporters. Although its Department of Foreign Affairs began evacuations from Libya shortly after the troubles began like many other countries, it appears that one of its main exports have chosen to stay. Among others, Filipino medical professionals--doctors, dentists, and nurses--have been in great demand abroad as evidenced by their sheer numerical strength.

The situation is no different in the Middle East. With their ability to adapt to local cultures, Filipino nurses--particularly those of Muslim faith--have been practising in these countries. Loath to let them go, it turns out the Libyan government has promised increased pay in exchange for Filipino nurses not leaving the country immediately. While the risk-reward ratio of such an action is debatable, these nurses are hedging on medical facilities not being targets for the pro-Gadhafi forces, the rebels, or the Western no-fly zone enforcers. Risky? Yes, but I hope their safety is indeed what they believe it is. From the Philippines' Daily Tribune:

At least 2,300 Filipino nurses have refused to be evacuated even after the United Nations approved military strikes against Libya. Acting Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said the nurses, 2,000 of whom are based in capital Tripoli and 383 in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, opted to stay following request from the Libyan government, which promised to increase their pay significantly if they remain.

“We have not received any request to come and provide transport so they can leave Tripoli,” Del Rosario said. “They feel safe being in a hospital and there’s nothing safer than being in a hospital.” But if the situation worsens, he said the government can arrange another ship to pick them up. The government has ended its evacuation in Libya and has moved to safety some 13,000 Filipinos.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Eduardo Malaya said the Filipino nurses chose to stay “in order to fulfill their professional obligation and attend to the needs of the sick and wounded...The safest places for them are the hospitals were they work. Hospitals are considered protected areas under international humanitarian law,” he added.

Matters are complicated by Manila throwing its backing to UN Resolution 1973:

Manila has expressed support to the UN resolution in Libya. Malaya said the Philippines “abides by the decision of the UN security council in imposing a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace as a member of the UN and a signatory of the UN charter. “This UN action is a humanitarian measure which is meant to safeguard the civilian population in Benghazi and other contested areas of said country,” he said.

Recent developments, he added, “will not likely adversely affect Filipinos, as the bulk of our nationals already exited Libya.” The Philippine Embassy in Tripoli will remain open to serve the needs and oversee the safety of the remaining Filipinos there, he said. “Ambassador Alejandrino Vicente and the embassy staff in Tripoli will remain to take care of the country’s interests and ensure the safety of Filipinos who chose to remain for personal reasons,” Malaya said.

And speaking of which, the Philippine government is on the hook for its citizens in several other Middle East destinations where ongoing protests may yet put them in harm's way. Take Syria and Bahrain:

In Syria, Philippine officials there are ready to activate the country’s contingency measures once the political strife worsens. A stock estimate from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas showed 19,423 Filipino workers in Syria. Syrians also took the same path as their neighbors by staging similar loud protests against their authoritarian government, hoping it would result in having their political freedom restored.

“The Philippine Embassy in Syria is closely monitoring developments in certain parts of the country,” Malaya said, adding that the 1,050-strong Filipino peacekeepers stationed in Golan Heights who were deployed to the country as part of a UN peacekeeping contingent can be mobilized to evacuate the thousands of Filipinos if needed.

Meanwhile, Bahrain Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa has assured the Philippine government that all Filipinos will be provided protection amid the growing unrest in the Middle East state. Khalifa on Saturday personally relayed this message to Del Rosario, who is currently on five-day Middle East swing to check on the condition of Filipino workers trapped in the spreading conflict across the region.

I suppose this is one of the unspoken responsibilities of mass migration in the 21st century. For, we have an international system where (economic) migrants are ultimately no one's responsibility except for the home country.Given that the Philippines does promote such migration, it's only fair. Then again, there will always be those who are more adventurous--alike the Filipino nurses in Libya.

'Apps for Development,' a World Bank Competition

In case you missed it, submissions have now closed and voting has just begun--hopefully including yours--for the World Bank-sponsored 'Apps for Development' competition. I am sure that electronics-literate readers should be familiar with apps--an abbreviation for applications common to devices such as cell phones, PDAs, and tablets. In this competition, apps must be developmentally relevant through the use of World Bank statistics and deal with at least one of the ten Millennium Development Goals. There is also serious prize money at stake, with a cool $15,000 going to the prizewinner, with a total of $45,000 at stake for various prizes.

Being a true pedant and browsing through the submissions, the competition is actually open to all software applications--such as those running on PCs. In the interest of fairness, perhaps the competition judges should factor in that laptop or desktop machines have more computing power. For instance, iPhones iPod Touches, and iPads do not quite match up to the iBook in hardware horsepower.

At any rate, it's certainly interesting to flip through the submissions. Since my particular interest is migration, for example, there's an interesting app which geographically displays from where workers' remittances come from and go to internationally.

Check them out and vote! My only qualm is that we can't actually download and try out these apps and must rely on the concept and video clips to form our minds.

Why Remittances Matter So Much More Than Aid

This Thursday, Labour MP and Shadow Secretary of State for International Development Harriet Harman is going to give a talk at the LSE on the moral imperative for rich countries like the UK to devote 0.7% of their GDP to development aid. While the history of why we have this 0.7% aid target is an interesting one, let's also consider how aid figures into the larger scheme of capital flows to LDCs.

The graphic above (click for a larger image) from the UN International Organization for Migration's World Migration Report 2010 depicts workers' remittances alongside official development aid to developing regions. In every single region of the world expect for sub-Saharan Africa, remittances far outstrip official development aid as a source of capital flows. And, with innovations for sending international remittances to the region coming online, I believe it's only a matter of time before remittances to SSA edge past aid flows.

Think about it: the World Bank estimates that $440 billion in remittances went to developing countries in in 2010. If so, why do remittances receive far less attention than aid? The white man's guilt is evident in efforts of celebrity activists of this world to shame rich countries into pumping more aid--a message that obviously resonates with politicians like Harriet Harman. Perhaps they ought to change their message in light of this economic reality. Although "send remittances to the world" may not have the same punch and emotional resonance as "feed the world," there is precious little to suggest that aid butters the bread of more LDCs than remittances.

Lastly, it reinforces how a truly globalized world should look like where goods, services, capital and labour are mobile instead of today's world where so many restrictions exist for the latter. The image above only begins to hint at the possible increases in global welfare from dismantling borders--quite possibly a doubling of global GDP--but let's say not everyone is ready yet for such a world. Still, instead of fighting tooth and nail for small reductions in trade barriers or increasing comparatively trivial amounts of aid, perhaps rich country politicians should consider how their migration regimes prevent such desirable outcomes if they're really interested in promoting development. So if there's an IPE issue that matters for the future, it isn't aid or trade but most likely migration.

Harriet Harman, are you listening?

Climate Apartheid? The India-Bangladesh Superfence

My friend came to me, with sadness in his eyes
He told me that he wanted help
Before his country dies

And so begin the lyrics to "Bangla Desh" from George Harrison's Concert for Bangla Desh held on 1 August 1971 in Madison Square Garden. Well before we had Sir Bono and Sir Bob Geldof, Live Aid and Live 8, we had the late, great Beatle setting the template for all there was to follow. This forerunner of all benefit concerts was held to support the victims of the 12 November 1970 Bhola cyclone in which an estimated 300,000 lost their lives in the region then called East Pakistan--today's Bangladesh. Just as Pakistan emerged from India, so did Bangladesh in turn emerge from Pakistan, declaring independence on 26 March 1971. It was a very difficult time for Bangladesh to say the least as it faced both the aftermath of a devastating natural calamity and the teething woes of becoming a nation--hence the lyrics above.

Now, politics on the Indian subcontinent are usually as contentious as they are interesting. Back then, Pakistan tried hard to keep Bangladesh from becoming a country, and India offered support. Among other things, India opened its border with East Pakistan to help refugees from the disaster cope. Unfortunately, environmental pressures on Bangladesh have hardly ebbed in the intervening years. Obviously, it hasn't gained any elevation while global warming has taken further effect. What more if sea levels continue to rise? With a population of over 160 million, Bangladesh is far from a tiny country population-wise.

The Commonwealth Secretariat has a new publication called Global: the international briefing that looks at global policy issues from the perspective of member states in the British Commonwealth. I highly recommend Robin Cohen's essay on why migration is a boon to globalization, though there are obviously strong interests opposed to it. In particular, the border between Bangladesh and India has become more fractious. To those following migration issues, such episodes are unsurprising given that about half of migration is, contrary to popular perception, South-South or between developing countries. I was thus struck by Cohen's description of a massive fence India is putting up:

As for South–South migration, there remain many tensions and important fault lines. The data are disputed, but there are probably about 3.5 million people born in Bangladesh living in India, with 1 million born in India and living in Bangladesh. With the Ganges Delta prone to periodic flooding, further population movements from Bangladesh to India are likely, but are inhibited by an Indian-built fence, stretching for nearly 4,100 km.

2011 is 40 years after 1971, and let's just say that the Indians are no longer as welcoming of Bangladeshis pouring over their borders. Moreover, even the effects of a major cyclone are time-bound, while permanently higher sea levels aren't. It's a security issue, they say. Aside from preventing those affected by flooding to seek refuge in neighbouring India, Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch asserts that Indian border guards have been overzealous while this massive fenestration project has become underway:

Do good fences make good neighbours? Not along the India-Bangladesh border. Here, India has almost finished building a 2,000km fence. Where once people on both sides were part of a greater Bengal, now India has put up a "keep out" sign to stop illegal immigration, smuggling and infiltration by anti-government militants.

This might seem unexceptional in a world increasingly hostile to migration. But to police the border, India's Border Security Force (BSF), has carried out a shoot-to-kill policy – even on unarmed local villagers. The toll has been huge. Over the past 10 years Indian security forces have killed almost 1,000 people, mostly Bangladeshis, turning the border area into a south Asian killing fields. No one has been prosecuted for any of these killings, in spite of evidence in many cases that makes it clear the killings were in cold blood against unarmed and defenceless local residents.

Shockingly, some Indian officials endorse shooting people who attempt to cross the border illegally, even if they are unarmed. Almost as shocking is the lack of interest in these killings by foreign governments who claim to be concerned with human rights. A single killing by US law enforcement along the Mexican border makes headlines. The killing of large numbers of villagers by Indian forces has been almost entirely ignored.

It gives one reason to pause about the consequences of global warming if the threats identified are real. Not being a climate change denier (or a deficit denier for that matter; these paleolithic tendencies tend to run together), the prospect is scary indeed. It pits higher-lying areas against adjacent lower-lying ones in a manner that seems not to build on the goodwill evident in past times, like say 1971. While the Guardian op-ed may overstate shootings on the border, the likelihood of rising sea levels and the continuing construction of this fence do not bode well for relations on the Indian subcontinent concerning borders. Also consider the economic effects of artificial separation.

Since George Harrison is no longer with us, perhaps it's up to his forebears to draw attention to a worthy cause. Is it climate apartheid, then? If migration restrictions increase further, I doubt whether this instance will be an isolated one, sadly.

Putting Numbers on European Xenophobia

The United States likes to fancy itself as a "melting pot" but suffers from multiple failings on the cultural understanding front. Among others, witness the Tea Party's spelling-challenged standard bearer discouraging the construction of a mosque merely in the vicinity of the World Trade Center or the not uncommon American belief that their country is led by a Muslim. Similarly, the European Union likes to portray itself as a champion of classic liberalism on the world stage espousing values like moderation and tolerance. But alas, it seems there are any number of political parties that don't see things that way as the table above gives a quick indication of. Declining religious participation and birth rates aside, European countries seem to share a common longing for a golden (or is that lily-white?) age when those other people knew their place. Such is the EU's concern that they've convened a panel to study intolerance in the EU:

Concern about the populist right and the social attitudes that nourish it has risen to such proportions that a panel of nine eminent Europeans – including Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister; Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s human rights commissioner; and Javier Solana, the Spaniard who retired last year as the European Union’s foreign policy supremo – was set up in September to investigate the problem. They will report next May to the Council of Europe’s foreign ministers on how to combat the rise of extremism and religious and ethnic intolerance.

But, as we all know, the larger problem is that the Franco-German powers-that-be driving the European project show little sensitivity about playing race and religion cards. Current French President Nicolas Sarkozy famously branded immigrant protesters as "scum" during the 2005 Paris riots while still the interior minister. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said "multiculturalism has failed" without fully understanding what multiculturalism is [hint: it is not simply having several cultures side by side]. Together, France and Germany have helped block several chapters for Turkey's European accession, offering a "privileged partnership" instead that's tantamount to second-class EU membership. The greater fear for those of a generally tolerant bent like Eurocrats (and myself to be honest) is not that xenophobic parties can achieve prominence, but that more mainstream ones will play elements of the same tune. For instance, UK conservatives have trumpeted placing caps on migration while thinking up less tolerant regimes. And so it goes:

The transformation is also noticeable in the way that leaders such as Angela Merkel, German chancellor, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, are hardening their rhetoric on the topics that have brought electoral success for their adversaries. Even more so than the rise of the populist right per se, it is this subtle intrusion of the extremists’ language into the public arena that disturbs exponents of classical European liberalism.

Among those worried is Thomas Hammarberg, a Swedish diplomat who has served since 2005 as human rights commissioner at the Council of Europe, the 47-nation grouping charged with upholding democracy and individual liberties in Europe. “Recent elections have seen extremist political parties gaining ground after aggressively Islamophobic campaigns,” he says. “Even more worrying is the inertia or confusion that seems to have befallen the established democratic parties in this situation. Compromises are made that tend to give an air of legitimacy to crude prejudices and open xenophobia...Political leaders have on the whole failed to counter Islamophobic stereotypes.”

As always, immigrants are easy scapegoats for what ails whichever country they are in. With negligible political clout, blaming them is particularly easy. Perhaps it's time the US and Europe began investigating the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its ability to facilitate cross-cultural and interfaith dialogue. Southeast Asia's diversity necessitates getting along in a way more "assimilationist" cultures don't necessarily champion. The former are hindered by attachments to American exceptionalism (the general belief that this world would be alright if we all behaved like [white] Americans) and its European equivalent hearkening to some combination of Christian traditions and the Enlightenment. The numbers certainly don't look very promising, and Turkey remains a litmus test for many observers as to whether Europe looks backward or forward.

Ultimately, I believe that the financial woes of peripheral EU states are less of a problem for the EU than handling migration. Like the US, many EU countries are on the hook for promising large benefits--especially given the latter's more corporatist compromise with a generation now beginning to retire en masse. As before, the numbers don't add up: you'll have more retirees drawing state benefits but fewer folks of working age paying into the system due to declining fertility rates. Someone must pick up the slack, and I'd venture those countries that more proactively address migration challenges will come out better.

UK Migration Favours Footballers Over Scientists?

Or so say prominent scientists here in the UK. Sometime ago, I mentioned how the UK's Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition partners were bound to have noticeable differences over migration. The Tories claim that New Labour had lost control of migration from non-EU countries. (Facilitating labour mobility within the EU is a precondition for membership.) Thus, the Conservatives have implemented a temporary cap on migration from outside the EU while supposedly being in the process of determining how to better keep tabs on migration.

Interestingly, the scientific community here in the UK--obviously composed of a substantial share of immigrants--is wary that Britain's scientific advantage may be depleted if these proposed immigration limits are implemented. In a letter to the London Times, eight prominent academic scientists have complained about the government's migration policies. All are Nobel Prize winners; the two most recent being Russian emigrants Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov who have just won the 2010 Physics award.

They also cite the strange immigration immigration priorities of the government since there are apparently no restrictions placed on footballers plying their trade in the Premier League. As you would expect, scientists argue that they contribute more to society and economic growth than do footballers. Much as I enjoy following sport, I think I know where a state's priorities should lie:

The UK's cap on immigration threatens the country's future as a centre of scientific excellence, a group of Nobel prize-winning scientists has warned. In a letter to the Times, the eight UK academics said the visa curbs would deprive science and industry of talent. They said it was a "sad reflection" that scientists and engineers could not be afforded the same exception to the rules as Premier League footballers.

The Home Office said it had consulted widely on the immigration cap. It introduced a limit for work visas for non-EU citizens in June. A key part of the Conservative election manifesto, the temporary cap of 24,100 will be replaced by permanent measures from April 2011.

In their letter, the academics wrote: "The government has seen fit to introduce an exception to the rules for Premier League footballers...It is a sad reflection of our priorities as a nation if we cannot afford the same recognition for elite scientists and engineers." They added: "International collaborations underlie 40% of the UK's scientific output, but would become far more difficult if we were to constrict our borders.

"The UK produces nearly 10% of the world's scientific output with only 1% of its population; we punch above our weight because we can engage with excellence wherever it occurs...The UK must not isolate itself from the increasingly globalised world of research - British science depends on it." The CBI [Confederation of British Industry], the Royal Society and university vice-chancellors have already voiced concerns about the immigration cap.

Sir Harry Kroto, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that one of his own researchers had been refused permission to study at Cambridge University under the rules and will now stay at a US university. "The UK loses out and in the future we can see the UK can only survive on its intellectual property, rather than as a country that provides things, with countries like India and China providing things more cheaply, so we need to look at that," he said.

"If one looks over the years, one quarter of the Nobel Prizes that came to the UK were won by immigrants from outside. It's probably very unwise to not look very carefully at the scientists, engineers and technologists who could come to this country and give this country the extra support it needs to compete in the future."

As mentioned earlier, the Liberal Democrats are not so keen on this gung-ho approach on immigration, though the Tories beg to differ:

Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable has said the measure is doing "huge damage" to British firms. Downing Street said the limit would be implemented in a way that still allowed the brightest and best to come to Britain. Minister for Immigration Damian Green said Britain could benefit from migration but not uncontrolled migration.

"Britain remains open for business and we will continue to attract and retain the brightest and the best people who can make a real difference to our economic growth, but unlimited migration places unacceptable pressure on public services...We have consulted with business and other interested parties on how the limit should work and have also asked the Migration Advisory Committee to consult on what the actual limit should be. These consultations are now closed and we will announce the findings in due course."

Two of the scientists behind the letter are Russian migrants, Professor Andre Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov, of the University of Manchester, who won the Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday. They invented graphene, the world's thinnest material which is 200 times stronger than steel. The other signatories are Sir Paul Nurse, Sir Tim Hunt, Sir Martin Evans, Sir Harry Kroto, Sir John Walker and Sir John Sulston.

I say it's an own goal, period.

Coming to America: US Migration Post-Recession

A peer blog posting on some shorter work of Giovanni Peri on migration jogged my memory of the same author's writings on the effects of recession on migration in the US context. Now,there is much debate on whether migration helps or hurts the host country. The Harvard economist George Borjas, for instance, says it depends. To him, current dynamics of continued low-skilled migration (that generally suits the interests of capital owners) and limited high-skilled migration (as a result of various professional organizations throwing roadblocks) are negative overall. Borjas believes low-skilled workers from elsewhere hurt the wages of low-skilled native workers in America, while high-skilled workers' successful labour protectionism against would-be foreign entrants keeps the cost of many services artificially high such as in medical practice.

While I would generally welcome higher-skilled migration as my country is keen on sending more qualified workers abroad, the debate becomes more intense on the lower end of the skill spectrum. At any rate, Peri relates his thoughts on the matter--especially in light of the recent subprime-led recession. Below is the press blurb; you can download the MPI report as well if you are interested in this field:
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There is broad consensus among economists that immigration has a small but positive impact on the average income of Americans over the long term. But far less analysis has been done on the impact of immigrants on the labor market in the shorter term, particularly when viewed through the lens of the recession and its lingering labor market effects.

In a new Migration Policy Institute report, The Impact of Immigrants in Recession and Economic Expansion, University of California, Davis economist Giovanni Peri finds that immigration unambiguously improves employment, productivity and income but that it also involves some short-term adjustments (such as worker retraining or adoption of new technology).

The paper was commissioned to inform the work of MPI’s Labor Markets Initiative, which is conducting a comprehensive, policy-focused review of the role of legal and illegal immigration in the labor market. The report, which examines short- and long-run impacts of immigration on average and over the business cycle of growth and contraction, finds that:

• Immigrants do not reduce native employment rates over the long run (10 years), while increasing productivity and average income for native-born workers. Immigration to the United States over the 1990-2006 period can be credited with a 2.9 percent increase in real wages for the average U.S. worker.
• The adjustment process, however, is not immediate. When immigration occurs during a downturn, the economy does not appear to respond as quickly as it would during economic expansions and there is evidence of modest negative impacts on employment and average income in the short run. These impacts dissipate over periods of up to seven years.
• During periods of economic growth, by contrast, new immigration creates jobs in sufficient numbers to leave native employment unharmed even in the short run. This holds true even for less-educated workers. Immigration during economic expansions has no measurable, short-term negative effect on income per worker.

“Adjustments to employment, productivity and income are more difficult during downturns,” Peri said. “This suggests that the United States would benefit most from an immigration system that better adjusts to economic conditions, allowing legal immigrant inflows to be more responsive to the economic cycle.”

In the report, Peri suggests allowing employers’ demand for work visas to play a stronger role in determining the number of visas issued annually, and that a share of the visas be allocated to less-skilled workers, particularly those who perform primarily manual jobs that native workers increasingly are much less interested in filling.

“This report offers further evidence yet of the need for the immigration system to become significantly more responsive to the U.S. economy’s constantly evolving labor market needs, so that the benefits of immigration can be captured more fully and any negative effects neutralized,’’ said MPI President Demetrios Papademetriou. “Establishing an independent executive-branch agency that would make regular recommendations to the president and Congress for adjusting employment-based immigration levels would inject a greatly needed degree of flexibility into the current rigid immigration system.”
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While I am generally in agreement with what Peri writes, I have some cautions: (1) High-unemployment US isn't exactly a magnet for talent at the current time and I will write more on this later. (2) Given its nature, what we need is global governance of migration instead of a national regime like that proposed in the paper. Moreover, the United States has arguably done more than anyone else to hinder the inclusion of temporary migration in the trade agenda. There are reasons why the Doha round is stalled, and the US not assenting to discussion of Mode 4 migration is certainly a part of it.

The Knowledge Worker Myth vs Blue Collar Reality

Never let it be said that there's no art to blogging. Alike in the offline world, there are talented folks who know how to weave a compelling narrative out of a mundane story, and there are those who weave a mundane narrative out of a compelling story. Today, I will of course try for the former--as I always do ;-) IMHO, something that separates a good blogger from a pedestrian one is an eye for something everyone else misses...

Once more demonstrating that you don't have to look far for IPE-relevant material, I came across this featured story on Yahoo!'s front page yesterday. There it was staring me in the face: a pretty damning indictment of what I've been taught all my life. Like me, you probably grew up in a generation that disdained blue collar work. That is, work which actually involves physical exertion and being good with one's hands has been frowned upon. It is not that these biases were made up on our own; our parents also had a role in drumming in the message that "manual labour" was something dirty. Hence, many of you are also of a generation told that lawyers, bankers, businessmen, and the like had it made. The white collar life was supposed to promise the land of milk and honey.

Certainly, academia has had an interest in propagating this story since it provides fodder for ensuring a steady stream of tuition-paying students in law, commerce, and business. Various American commentators like former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan have constructed an entire narrative out of "knowledge workers." In recent times, that has meant training to be a software engineer or some other lofty position that makes the most of conceptualizing abstract ideas and similarly high-faluting rhetoric. The truth, though, is much less compelling. Take America (please). Not only are there scores of unemployed college graduates there, but wages of college graduates have been on a downward trend since 2000. So much for the college myth.

The aforementioned Reuters article rubs it in further by pointing out that, actually, the skills which are most in demand worldwide are not those requiring fancy college degrees but fairly "mundane" blue-collar certification:

Workers with specialized skills like electricians, carpenters and welders are in critically short supply in many large economies, a shortfall that marks another obstacle to the global economic recovery, a research paper by Manpower Inc (MAN.N) concludes. "It becomes a real choke-point in future economic growth," Manpower Chief Executive Jeff Joerres said. "We believe strongly this is really an issue in the labor market."

The global staffing and employment services company says employers, governments and trade groups need to collaborate on strategic migration policies that can alleviate such worker shortages. Skilled work is usually specific to a given location: the work cannot move, so the workers have to.

The shortage of skilled workers is the No. 1 or No. 2 hiring challenge in six of the 10 biggest economies, Manpower found in a recent survey of 35,000 employers. Skilled trades were the top area of shortage in 10 of 17 European countries, according to the survey.

While the short-term way to address to shortages is to embrace migration, the long-term solution is to change attitudes toward skilled trades, Manpower argues. Since the 1970s, parents have been told that a university degree -- and the entry it affords into the so-called knowledge economy -- was the only track to a financially secure profession. But all of the skilled trades offer a career path with an almost assured income, Joerres said, and make it possible to open one's own business.

In the United States, recession and persistent high unemployment may lead parents and young people entering the workforce to reconsider their options. The skilled trades category also includes jobs like bricklayers, cabinet makers, plumbers and butchers, jobs that typically require a specialist's certification.

Older, experienced workers are retiring and their younger replacements often do not have the right training because their schools are out of touch with modern business needs. Also contributing to the shortage is social stigma attached to such work, Manpower argues in its paper published on Wednesday.

A poll of 15-year-olds by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found only one in 10 American teenagers see themselves in a blue-collar job at age 30. The proportion was even lower in Japan. Education could address that stigma. Students should be reminded that blue-collar work can be lucrative: skilled plumbers can make upwards of $75,000 a year, Manpower argues. Overall, Manpower's fifth annual talent shortage survey found 31 percent of employers worldwide are having difficulty filling positions due to the lack of suitable workers available in their markets, up one percentage point over last year...

And there's also the problem of developed countries reluctance to accept more migrants despite a lack of workers with the requisite skills:

Examples of successful, targeted migration include an Ohio shipbuilder that brought in experienced workers from Mexico and Croatia, and a French metal-parts maker that hired Manpower to find welders in Poland.

Obstacles to such migration include differing standards for certification in skilled trades, as well as political barriers to immigration, which remains an "emotive" subject in many countries, Manpower's CEO said. Japanese employers, for example, have difficulty attracting skilled workers. Sweden, on the other hand, is innovative and aggressive about strategic migration, for example by removing obstacles to workers being recertified in their specialty, Joerres said.

Coming from a country that is a large sender of migrants, I myself work on these issues of international certification and similar qualifications. In the end, all I ask is that we be allowed to compete on a level playing field despite obvious disadvantages of relative poverty and the need to traverse often vast distances away from hearth and home. For obvious reasons, though, many of those in the West would rather not extend the opportunity to foreigners to compete for qualifications on similar terms. I prefer to think that hard work will help me overcome prejudices in a white man's world.

At any rate, do read the Manpower publication Strategic Migration - A Short-Term Solution to the Skilled Trades Shortage discussed in the article above as it is quite illuminating, Manpower certainly knows its business as it is the second largest staffing company in the world. While lifting limits on migration in order to combat global slowdown is certainly of interest to me, the fact that much-maligned blue collar work is actually what's in short supply should be a wake-up call to others. Perhaps higher education is a fraud foisted on me that I've helped perpetuate. It's not a comforting thought, but hey, sometimes the truth hurts but needs to be told.

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On my walk home, I usually pass Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Dirty Dancing, and Legally Blonde. Obviously, the Brits are fond of making musicals out of blockbuster movies. Guess what's opening soon in London's theatre district? I kid you not: Flashdance: The Musical [!] Critics have always disparaged this movie and its plot that beggars belief. IMDB's plot summary sums it up nicely:

Alex Owens is a female dynamo: steel worker by day, exotic dancer by night. Her dream is to get into a real dance company, though, and with encouragement from her boss/boyfriend, she may get her chance. The city of Pittsburgh co-stars. What a feeling!

OK, so I too thought Flashdance was more of a vehicle for the 80s soundtrack than the other way around. The new musical is in the same vein: more a platform for catchy 80s songs than plot-driven drama. Still, it begs the question: if a musical featuring a hackneyed tale about a welder can be made into a London musical, what is there stopping blue collar trades from being made "glamorous" as well? It's a task of changing perceptions that begins with parents who influence their offspring's career choices. I personally believe that unemployment is unglamorous, so the blue collar stigma is undeserved.

Ultimately, perhaps it's those of us with degrees in higher education who are the real dummies. Moreover, I suspect this world would be a much better place if there were more welders than, say, investment bankers--whether they choose to be exotic dancers at night or otherwise. Young son or daughter, in the immortal words of, er, Irene Cara, take your passion...and make it happen.

UPDATE: Kindred over at IPE@UNC suggests that I was mistaken over a "few facts" about US income trends. Now Kindred's a good kid, but he is wet behind the ears as he tends to put words in my mouth and gets embarrassed for it. Anyway, I decided to look up the numbers for myself instead of relying on other's charts. Below are the figures for US income for those 25 and up for the years 2000 to 2008 from US Census Bureau tables P-16 and P-18. It doesn't matter whether it's the mean or the median or if you're male or female; real annual income has been falling there since 2000. It doesn't matter either if you're a college graduate or have a higher educational attainment [click to enlarge image]:

I guess the furriner is more familiar with US stats than the American. Also at grad school, you are taught not to compare apples and oranges, but he does so by quoting another data series and naively suggesting differences have something to do with using "mean" and not "median" data. The table above should shelve that schoolboy howler (and I even use the same data series!) Maybe Kindred should visit Singapore for I suspect the educational standard there isn't declining as markedly as it is in America. R-E-A-D-I-N-G comprehension suggests this post is about college prospects post-(US led) financial crisis, so there you go with regard to time frames. Oh well, it's good he at least recognizes income there isn't rising unlike before. As an educator, I find patience with the recalcitrant to be a virtue. Lastly, the point Manpower makes is that there are technical and vocational degrees that stand you a good chance of landing a job while there are many college degrees that don't. Again for the S-L-O-W learner, it's not college vs. non-college but in-demand technical or vocational degree vs. not-in-demand college degree. And don't get me started on this being a worldwide survey instead of another boringly parochial American one.

You have to wake up pretty early in the morning to put one over ol' Emmanuel, Wizened IPE Buzzard ;-)