Introduction

International labour migration (ILM) is an increasingly visible phenomenon in Southeast Asia in recent decades. There are two types of flows. The first is semi-skilled and unskilled workers on short term contracts (overseas contract workers) and the second involves skilled professionals and executives. The two types of flows have different determinants and effects and hence have drawn different policies from labour importing and exporting countries.

Developed countries facing declining and ageing populations and labour shortages generally like to have labour inflows, but of their own choosing with regard to numbers, skills mix and geographic sources. Employers facing labour and skill shortages want access to foreign workers to meet their operational needs and to keep a lid on rising wages. However, labour in these countries want the inflows to be controlled, fearing loss of jobs and loss of bargaining leverage in wage negotiations. The general public in these labour receiving countries is concerned with the impact of a sizeable foreign workforce on the demand for public services, social cohesion, and on the incidence of disease and crime. On the other hand, developing countries with abundant labour resources seek a more liberalised global flow of labour, viewing them as a source of comparative advantage. The migrant workers themselves want a freer environment to make decisions to migrate to seek better economic opportunities.

Southeast Asia is a net sender of labour to the rest of the world. Major destinations of labour migrants are the Middle East and East Asia, with smaller flows to the US, Canada, Europe and Australia. However, there are within- region variations in sending and receiving countries. The Southeast Asian country studies covered exclude Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and can be grouped into the following: (a) mainly labour sending – Indonesia (Ananta and Arifin 2008), Philippines (Tullao 2008), Vietnam (Huy 2008); mainly labour receiving – Singapore (Chew and Chew 2008); (c) both labour receiving and sending – Malaysia (Kanapathy 2008) and Thailand (Chalamwong 2008).