International Migration and Labor Markets During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, international migration was a global process with multilateral population movements between states. Migration provided countries with significant opportunities for development, providing an influx of intellectual capital, labor, and financial resources. For example, in some developing countries, remittances from migrant workers have been comparable to, and in recent years even exceeded, FDI and aid. According to the UN in 2020, every seventh inhabitant of the Earth was a migrant. In fact, migration has become a global factor in the development of societies and economies. The COVID-19 pandemic has made significant adjustments to international migration, and has also significantly transformed both international and national labor markets. In relation to the international labor market, the pandemic can be seen as a negative externality, and the result of its negative impact was the failure of the economy in general and the labor market in particular. The failure of the labor market was expressed in the instability of supply and demand, which led to a change in working conditions and employment, an increase in structural imbalances in terms of compensation for work and the distribution of labor resources across sectors of the economy, as well as a decrease in the importance of professional forms of organization of the workforce. With regard to the processes of international migration, one can state the formation of the phenomenon of the “post-COVID syndrome”, which refers to the restoration of the scale of migration flows after a pandemic, accompanied by a transformation of the factors and structure of migration. Due to the high importance of migration flows for national economies and the world economy, these changes will be able to significantly transform the international and national labor markets, in which migrants occupied significant niches. In this regard, the issue of monitoring and improving the mechanisms for managing migration in crisis and post-COVID conditions at the international and national levels is being updated.