Author: Dilaka Lathapipat, TDRI

There is a widespread belief among Thais that immigrants reduce local workers’ job opportunities and depress wages.

This is evident from an opinion survey study conducted in late 2010 by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Triangle Project on public attitudes to migration and migrant workers. Read more…

Author: Shankaran Nambiar, MIU, Malaysia

The present and future quality of Malaysia’s human capital is of considerable concern for the country’s policy makers.

Human capital is not improving as it should, and it threatens to constrain Malaysia’s growth objectives. Read more…

Author: Suman Bery, IGC

The Indian government presented its National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) to the nation in early November.

Presumably, the announcement was timed to demonstrate that reform is alive and kicking before parliament reconvenes later this month. With the final text now available on the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion website, it is possible to take a considered view of the policy’s goals, the means proposed to achieve them and the probability of success. It is also possible to speculate on the unintended consequences and possible collateral damage.

Read more…

Author: Cai Fang, CASS

The rapid increase in the wages of unskilled workers in China is well documented. Since the initial appearance of labour shortages in 2003, wages have increased substantially in all sectors.

In the period 2003 to 2008, the annual growth rate of monthly wages in real terms was 10.5 per cent in manufacturing, 9.8 per cent in construction, and 10.2 per cent for migrant workers. Read more…

Author: Kam Wing Chan, University of Washington

In the popular media and the business world, urbanisation is often cited as the fundamental driver of global economic growth, especially for the next few decades.

The assumption is that a rural–urban shift will transform poor farmers into industrial and office workers, raising their incomes and creating a massive consumer class. Read more…

Author: Nina Merchant-Vega, The Asia Foundation

Since the 1980s, microfinance institutions in Bangladesh have touted the success of women micro-entrepreneurs in starting and operating thousands of microenterprises throughout the country.

While this is certainly an achievement, Bangladeshi women have not achieved the same level of success in the small and medium sized enterprise (SME) sector. Read more…

Author: Naohiro Yashiro, ICU, Tokyo

There seems a bit of a consensus among foreign economists that Japan needs more labour market flexibility.

Most Japanese policy makers and researchers, however, believe otherwise. So there is no real push for reform. Read more…

Author: Vikas Kumar, Bangalore

Bangladesh is not only one of the most densely populated countries in the world, but it is also among the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters.

In the foreseeable future, climate change is likely to accentuate these crises, and increasingly, Bangladeshis will attempt to make their way to India. Read more…

Author: Cai Fang and Wang Meiyan, CASS

Migrant worker wages have steadily increased since 2003, the year that significantly witnessed the first labour shortage in Chinese economic development. Not only have the wages in manufacturing and construction increased constantly, reflecting a more general rise in wages, migrant workers’ wages have been catching up to urban wages as well.

Investors fear that inflated migrant wage rates may weaken the comparative advantage of China’s labour-intensive industries and thus harm their commodities’ competitiveness.

Why are migrant worker wages increasing? Read more…

Author: Evelyn Devadason, ANU

Malaysia has a total of 1.9 million registered migrant workers, constituting approximately 21 per cent of the workforce, making Malaysia the largest importer of labour in Asia.

Despite the large presence of migrant workers in the economy, the policies and laws regulating in-migration are chaotic. Policies built on the concept of a short-term remedy for labour shortage problems have exposed the failure on the part of policymakers to recognise the critical contribution of migrant workers over the longer term. Read more…

Author: Stephen Howes, ANU

Ever since the 1980s, Australian academics and official reports have called for Pacific Islanders to be given better access to the Australian labour market. To its credit, the Rudd Government introduced the Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme in August 2008. The scheme allows Pacific Islanders to engage in farm work in Australia for up to seven months a year. Unfortunately, the scheme has never taken off, with less than 100 Islanders participating in the two years since its launch. Theories for its failure abound ranging from excessive red-tape to the prolonged drought.

In stark contrast to Australia, New Zealand has always offered preferential migration treatment to its Pacific neighbours. Read more…

Author: William Hurst, University of Texas at Austin

In the recent past, Western political scientists were divided over whether newly possible field research in mainland China was superior to exclusively document-based study or émigré interviewing in Hong Kong. At some point in the 1980s, the debate subsided and mainland-based field research won out. So, which fieldwork methods, applied in which local contexts, are best suited to which research questions in Chinese politics?

There are three main fieldwork approaches: Single-site case studies, sub-national comparative analysis, and large-scale surveys across many regions or populations. Read more…

Authors: Geethanjali Nataraj and Anjali Tandon, NCAER

While China’s stellar export performance is a well established fact, the issue of export diversification continues to be debated. There are differing opinions on the factor proportions in its exports. Some argue that exports continue to be labour intensive while others have found a reallocation in favour of more skill based and sophisticated exports.

Much of the strong export performance of China’s merchandise exports during the 1990s had accrued due to labour intensive products. Read more…

Author: Renu Kohli

India’s labour market is in for a vigorous shake up over the next few years. The inexorable march of market forces, and their interplay with the structural and political dynamics of the country, could end up drawing many unemployed persons into the job market.

India is still far from creating mass jobs in large-scale manufacturing. But over the medium term, absorbing such unutilised human capital will help preserve the economy’s competitiveness in an environment of rapid growth. Read more…

Authors: Sherry Tao Kong, Xin Meng and Dandan Zhang, Australia National University

The global financial crisis (GFC) reduced export orders sharply and led to a decline in China’s economic growth.  As China’s exporting industries are labour intensive and most likely to employ rural migrants, it was widely believed that the GFC has had significant negative impacts on the employment and/or wages of rural migrants.

Reflecting this, at the height of the crisis, laid-off Chinese migrant workers protested outside closed factories and millions lamented lost jobs and embarked on journeys home. Read more…