Asian Labor Migration to the Middle East

Abstract

There are currently between two and three million Asian workers in the Middle East, a tenfold increase in fewer than ten years. Pakistan and India each have about 800,000 workers in the Middle East (Demery, 1983). The increase in labor migration from Asia to the Middle East accompanied a rapid expansion in the economic and social development plans of the oil-exporting countries in the Middle East subsequent to the 1973 oil embargo. The indigenous labor forces in the oil-exporting countries were relatively small and lacked the necessary technical skills to carry out these ambitious development plans (Minocha et al, 1983). Labor shortages were exacerbated by an aversion to manual labor on the part of workers in the oil-producing countries and by low labor force participation rates for women (Birks and Sinclair, 1979). To fill this gap, foreign workers were originally brought in from other countries in the Middle Eastern region. When the supply of qualified, cost-effective Arab workers became tight, however, the oil-ex? porting countries began to diversify their sources of labor, first drawing on workers from South Asia and more recently expanding their horizons to East and Southeast Asia. The major labor-exporting countries in Asia are, in general, highly favorable toward labor migration and they have taken steps to facilitate the flow of workers to the Middle East. Many of these countries have come to rely heavily on remittances from the Middle East (currently totaling about $6 bil? lion annually) for precious foreign exchange. Labor migration has also been viewed as providing a safety valve for widespread unemployment and underemployment in the sending countries. Only recently have some of the