Understanding the Pattern of Placement and Recruitment of Migrant Workers in Southeast and East Asia: Costs, Challenges, and Recommendations

Although governments are managing migration in a way that many parties could economically benefit from it, migrants are often left behind in achieving their fundamental rights. This research focuses on one aspect that helps condition those basic rights: the right to have an affordable migration. What this research found from the field is that although the infrastructure to facilitate migration has become widely available, people do not necessarily migrate with ease. The more restrictive regulation of migration indicates that migration is not easily accessible to people causing migration to be expensive. Private sectors are there, attempting to tackle the restrictive migration regulations for those migrating. The business initiative does not stop there. Business entities have also initiated a new strand of business activity that is a credit scheme for overseas job seekers.

To answer why cost and fees with regards to recruitment and placement are difficult to control, this report will first identify the common pattern of migration placement of migrant workers in Southeast and East Asia by investigating the roots of cause as well as the migration cost structure. From there, this research will capture the pattern of the recruitment of migrant workers in the two regions by paying attention to the migration infrastructure in Southeast and East Asia.