Temporary labour migration is back in the headlines again. It had fallen into discredit after the experience of the “guest-worker” era, when many of the guest workers who were present at the time of the first oil price shock remained in the host countries where they had found work. Recently, much of the debate on temporary labour migration has focused on so-called “circular migration”, which also incorporates the notion of repeated movements.
Why temporary migration is back in the limelight?
There are essentially three reasons for the resurgent interest in temporary migration.
The first relates to the fact that returns of highly qualified migrants are seen as a possible response to concerns about brain drain. For example, in India and Chinese Taipei, the return of highly skilled migrants has had beneficial effects on the development of the native software and high-technology sectors. As a result, some have argued that this model of return migration could be applied more broadly, enabling origin countries to reap some benefits from the temporary loss of talented expatriates.
The second reason is related to the discovery of the large remittances transferred by immigrants, both high- and lesser-skilled, back to their origin countries. These remittances greatly improve the welfare of persons left behind and tend to be more common for recent or short-term immigrants than for those long-established in host countries. Temporary migration tends to spread the benefits of remittances and of skill transfers among more persons.
The third concerns the fact that lesser skilled migration continues to suffer from a bad image in many host countries, with less favourable labour market outcomes for immigrants with low education and, often, for their children as well. As a consequence, there is a general reluctance to acknowledge that there are labour market needs for lowskilled migrants and a belief that any needs which do exist should be dealt with by means of temporary flows.
But how often do immigrants return to their countries of origin after a stay in a host country? Can migration policy encourage returns to host countries? Is temporary/circular labour migration a workable solution? This publication provides some answers to these questions.