Facilitating Economic Development Through Employment Opportunities for Migrant Workers

Abstract

The World Bank for several years has endorsed an agenda of promoting economic development through labour migrant programs in many regions including the Oceanic-Pacific region. Evidence also seems to indicate that the effective facilitation of economic development through labour migrant programs requires appropriate matching of migrant workers to suitable employment opportunities in industry sectors within host countries where there exists relevant vacancies that migrant workers could be matched to and that they would be able to undertake in a meaningful way. As such, the analysis of pertinent labour market data relating to industry sectors experiencing labour shortages within host countries is necessary to accurately identify occupational groups which require an influx of appropriately matched migrant workers to meet labour demand. In addition such labour market data analysis would also enable the extent of the labour shortages across the job categories within the specific sectors to be astutely assessed and evaluated, which is likely to contribute to improving the overall success of the labour migrant policies and programs that are developed and implemented. To this end, this paper provides a summary analysis of the potential employment opportunities for migrant workers within specific occupational groups across relevant industry sectors in potential host countries.