Labour Mobility in Asia Pacific Region: China & Singapore Analysis - Case Study Example

LABOUR MOBILITY IN ASIA PACIFIC REGION: CHINA & SINGAPORE CASE ANALYSIS Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation University Name Date Table of Contents Executive Summary..……………………………………………………………………………..3 A. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………4 B. Mobility within the Asia Pacific Region…………………………………………………4 C. Driving Forces behind the Labour Mobility in Asia Pacific Region…………………….6 D. Case Studies related to Labour Mobility in Asia Pacific Region………………………...7 E. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….10 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….11 Executive Summary The focus of this paper is on examining labour mobility in Asia Pacific Regions. A comprehensive analysis is given of different countries within these regions that include Thailand, Malaysia and China. However, more emphasis has been directed towards explaining the current situation in two economies; China and Singapore. The paper has successfully ascertained that in Singapore, foreign labour mobility has helped shape its overall gross domestic product and that the country has ensured to sustain this activity on an legal platform due to the limited number of skilled labour supply within its population. Consequently, the paper has established that in China, labour mobility has fostered accumulation of foreign reserves but that most of this activity happens on an internal scale given the recent transformation of the Chinese sectors from agricultural based to large-scale manufacturing points across the globe. F. Introduction Intensive research data indicates that there has been a significant rise in the level of mobility of workers within Asia-Pacific region for the past 3 or 4 decades or so. In essence, there have been increased substantial movements of workers of the South and East Asian decent to the Gulf States thereby creating an interest on such aspect as worker protection as well as the development of remittances they bring about to their home countries (Wickramasekara, 2008). Indeed there has been intensive movement of workers within the influential and top notch economies of the region that include; Singapore, Republic of Korea, Malaysia amongst others and the pattern is set to continue to the future period due to labour shortages and issues related to the underlying demographic ageing facing the region (Wickramasekara, 2008). Informational data indicates that there has been an outflow of migrant workers from the entire Philippines region that rose from 662,000 in year ending 2001 to more than 1.4M by the end of 2009; in Bangladesh the increase was from a figure slightly below 190,000 in 2001 to 875,000 in 2008; and in Indonesia there was increase from 294,000 in the year ending 2003 to 607,000 by the end of 2007. The same trend is witnessed in Vietnam where there was an increase from a mere 28,000 workers to more than 87,000 by the end of 2008 (Hugo, 2008). The focus of this paper will try and examine the mobility of labour within the Asia-Pacific region and the resultant impacts on labour markets as well as the existing labour situations within the overall host countries. For this paper, the mobility of labour is examined using two Asian countries with well-developed economies; China and Singapore. G. Mobility within the Asia Pacific Region Host countries have continued to show distinctive levels of differences in the manner for which they manage aspects related to emigration of their immediate nationals that seek employment in other countries and with the overall improvements in the number of registered flows is a clear indication that these nations have continued to be liberal in allowing their workers to move abroad in search of better working conditions (Hugo, 2008). In those countries where the overall issuance of passports is deemed to be strictly supervised, the underlying worker outflows through legal means could be seen to be perceived to be significantly lower to the real actual outflows (Hugo, 2008). Intensive research analysis of the region indicate that many of the underlying workers are finding even newer ways of exiting their home countries without even taking concern of the registration processess provided with their own country authorities. In essence, perfect example will be the more than 1M Burmese workers that have already secured jobs in Thailand without taking efforts of securing travel documents and permits to continue working (Bryant, 2005). Consequently, there is also more documented evidence of a significant and growing number of Chinese workers in other sections of the globe especially in Africa, where there are used for technical skills duties. It should be noted that the continual growth in labour mobility has been also witnessed within the national borders. This can be fairly perceived especially in China whereby the labour mobility aspect has been going on within their internal and outside of their own territorial states. In fact, Kofman and Parvati(2006, p.291) notes that China has a floating migrant population that is in excess of more than 200M people; that is solely dependent on the manner for which migration is defined. H. Driving Forces behind the Labour Mobility in Asia Pacific Region The existing labour mobility patterns, volumes and internal composition of migrations tend to emphasise on the presumption that they are being triggered by market forces. Indeed, this is absolutely positive for the case related to the migration flows of the Asians to the Gulf States like UAE and Qatar where the pattern is mostly influenced by the extensive expenditure on both private and public construction sectors where both skilled and unskilled labour is required (Siar, 2011). In consequence, migration of labour within the entire Southeast Asia has ensured to adhere to a similar pattern. For instance, migrant workers moving base to Thailand from the neighbouring economies seems to assuming jobs that are already left by the locals in such important sectors as agriculture; fishing as well as those deemed to be requiring low-levels of skills including household chores and labour-intensive production (Siar, 2011). In Malaysia, there has been continuous filling of labour shortages witnessed in jobs that do not attract the local nationals. The existing Malaysian government has been left with no option but open up its overall gates so that they can coordinate a wells-structured worker recruitment activity to work on their rubber and palm oil plantations; commerce and household work across the country. Of particular interest to note, excess supply tends to develop into imminent pressure for migration and this can happen in specific areas of the labour market even in the event where other markets are experiencing shortages (Barajas, et al, 2009). For example, in the East Asia region, there exists excess supply of college educated young graduates due to the fact there has been increase in enrolment to tertiary institutions at the expense of growth in overall market demand. A perfect example will be young Koreans and Japanese in addition to both Malaysians and Filipinos are abandoning their countries in search of opportunities elsewhere (Aslund, & Rooth, 2007). Despite the existence of immigration policies, foreign labour population continue to increase in regions where there has been imminent economic growth. Recently, Singapore government introduced a special foreign worker levy to discourage enterprises from dependency on foreign labour; it also engaged in a restructuring the levy process in order to prevent possible discrimination against employing workers of low-skills capacity except in areas related to non-tradable functions like construction sectors. Notably, with the ever-changing conditions within the overall labour market as income rose steadily did foster a lower dependence on foreign-based labour. In fact, even in the current economy most of the migrant workers in Singapore represent more than 30% of the overall labour force in comparison to only 8% when the foreign labour levy was first introduced approximately two decades ago (Bell & Muhidin, 2009). Thailand, at first, did not wish to open its legal platforms for the immediate admission of unskilled migrant labour however; just until recently, the government noted with great concerns that it was already employing more than a million of foreign workers illegally (Bell & Muhidin, 2009). To counter this emerging trend, it resorted to launching a registration initiative for which all of the foreign workers were allowed an opportunity to work for six or so months after which they could reapply for legal entry or thereby leave (Bell & Muhidin, 2009). In fact, for close to three decades and since the early 1990s, the country adopted four forms of amnesty programmes that were eventually successive with all being focused on transforming this sector into a promising one in future. The following sections present a case study that explores labour mobility in Singapore and China and their immediate overall impacts. I. Case Studies related to Labour Mobility in Asia Pacific Region A. Singapore Immigration seems to have taken a center stage for Singapore’s short demographic history and assisted in shaping the acceptance of immense immigration in the present period. In essence, migrants from China and India as well as the surrounding economies are a main contribution of its population growth (Chia, 2011). The period that was linked with free migration into Singapore was brought down to a close within the Great Depression that occurred in the period between 1929 and 1939 immediately after the economic slump in the country resulted to high levels of unemployment. Until recently, the country did not allow entry only for the emergence of labour shortages that resulted to a robust economic growth and development, which fostered the relaxation of previous restrictions of entry into the country (Chia, 2011). As a result of this easement, there resulted an influx of low-skilled workers especially in such sectors as manufacturing; domestic services and construction emerged from conventional sources like Philippines, Thailand and South East Asia region (Chia, 2011). Singapore further continued to attract a large number of foreign professionals and skilled labour from the now great presence of foreign-based multinational corporations. It is ascertained that Singapore continuous to allow immigration and foreign labour even within recent decades for purposes of growing its population beyond a size that is established by a declining total fertility rate; for purposes of ensuring that it mitigates a rapid population ageing as well as loss of its societal dynamism and the overall rising health care related costs; and, also to improve on its existing labour supply so that it does not face economic constraints and unintended restructuring of the economy as a whole (Chia, 2011). It is important to note that Singapore’s immediate demand for migration labour is both for the short and long-term needs of business cycles as well as overall economic growth and development. Statistically, it is noted that there was an increase in the number of migrant workers in Singapore that fluctuated from 600,000 in the period between 1998 and 2004 to more than 1M in the period between 2008 and 2010; this is an addition to those that already acquired permanent residents and citizens (Chia, 2011). The source of Singapore’s immediate flow of low-skilled work permits are substantially from developing Asian countries with lower wage index that include; Malaysia, and the Republic of China. The economy allows three form of visas for employment purposes within its borders that include; employment pass holders (EP) that mainly consists of professionals and skilled workers; work permit holders for lowly-skilled and semi-skilled migrant labourers; and S pass holders that is awarded to midlevel talents like technicians and those possessing specialized levels of skills (Chew Soon & Chew,2008). The resultant effects and impacts of allowing migrant workers into the country emanates from the country’s immediate high demand for foreign labour that is linked to a slower growth and development in local labour supplies. For this reason, the imminent measures that can be taken to possibly avoid this overdependence on foreign labour markets lies in the upgrading of its economic structures far away from labour-intensive activities and making sure to allow incentives to businesses that adhere to labour-saving policies (Chew Soon & Chew,2008). In regards to the country’s GDP, it is determined that Singapore’s potential gross domestic product size, which is a result of foreign labour, is far much beyond the restrictions set by its own population growth and composition. B. China The recent set of transformation witnessed in China for the few decades until now from an economy that was solely dependent on agricultural production to a large-scale production point for the global manufacturing capacities has resulted to intensive movements of workers from its hinterlands to coastal-based cities. It is important to emphasize that unlike most of the other Asian countries like Singapore, for the case of China the movement of almost 80 to 200 million of its workers are majorly within its vast national borders although there have been recent movements of these Chinese workers to other parts of the world and especially Africa (Gui, Berry, & Yong, 2012). The resultant effect or rather impact of these Chinese-based internal labour movements is perceived in its ever-increasing foreign reserves especially that which emanates from the movers who return home after the acquisition of human capital in such more advanced economies thereby boosting the level of its overall productivity capacity (Gui, Berry, & Yong, 2012). Particularly important to ascertain, China has continued to benefit a lot from public employment exchanges that merely focus on job opportunities that have been arranged by governments through a set of bilateral trade contracts. In fact, currently, the Chinese investors are focused on investing in Africa on the condition that some of the tenders awarded by these African governments are distributed to Chinese nationals. J. Conclusion In Conclusion, the Asia Pacific region, just as any other region has benefited a lot from foreign-based labour markets. Such countries like Singapore and Thailand that did not have sufficient population to cater for its labour supply have continued to depend on migrant labour mobility to further advance on its overall GDP. Economies like China also experience labour mobility but on an internal scale and under government initiatives like public exchange employments. References List Aslund, O., & Rooth, D. O.2007. Do when and where matter? Initial labour market conditions and immigrant earnings. Economic Journal, 117(518): 422 - 448. Bryant, J. 2005. Children of International Migrants in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines: A Review of Evidence and Poli­cies. Innocenti Working Paper. Barajas, A., Chami, R., Fullenkamp, C., Gapen, M., & Montiel, P. 2009. Do workers’ remittances promote economic growth (International Monetary Fund, Working Paper, 09/153)? Retrieved from http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2009/wp09153.pdf Bell, M., & Muhidin, S. (2009). 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