Think of the future when formulating immigration policy, says OECD
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Rich countries such as the United States should open up more to both skilled and unskilled migrants, according to the latest report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), of which the United States is a member.
The organization notes the reluctance on the part of many of its member nations, which include the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Mexico, to accept unskilled laborers while battling to attract high-skilled workers.
The United States has tightened its borders in an attempt to slow the flow of migrants from Latin American countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.
Thousands of people cross the border illegally every year to the United States to make money to send home. After profits from its oil exports, remittances sent home by Mexicans living in the United States is Mexico’s second biggest source of income. The construction industry in the United States is a huge employer of migrants from Latin America, but its recent collapse is seeing a lot of immigrant workers looking for other options. Some are even heading home.
But OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría argues in the International Migration Outlook report that the United States should be seeking ways to hold on to those workers rather than trying to send them back to where they came from.
“Constructing a country’s migration policy on the assumption that labor immigrants will only stay for a short time is not the way to go. It is neither efficient nor workable,” he says in the report.
“Mastering migration,” he said, “will bring us a big step closer towards making globalisation work for everyone. Tailoring immigration to future needs is vital. But it is also vital to treat it as an economic and social phenomenon which, if well managed, can provide solutions to some of our present challenges rather than to react intuitively or emotionally, or to use it for short-term political gain.”
The report says that ‘some temporary programmes, notably those that involve seasonal jobs during harvest periods or peak tourist seasons, work well. But long-term, permanent demand for low-skilled labour in other sectors, such as home care, food processing and construction, is expected to continue, especially as countries face drops in both their working-age populations and in the number of people prepared to work in low-status, low-paid sectors.’
The United States receives about one third of all permanent migration flows, with about 1.3 million migrants in 2006, according to the report. The United Kingdom ranks second (about 340,000 permanent migrants), followed by Spain, Canada and Germany.
The OECD member countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Read the OECD’s ‘International Migration Outlook’ here.
Click here for more on immigration.
— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City