International Labour Migration and its Implication in the APEC Region

Abstract

For those trying to find answers to the large number of unresolved and pressing issues resulting from international labour migration, the economies of APEC and their future development provide an area of very special interest. APEC2 includes amongst its member economies the world’s two largest exporters of labour, namely Mexico and the Philippines, as well as the world’s three largest destinations for permanent migration, namely, the United States, Canada and Australia. It includes economies, which both import as well as export labour and economies which have passed through the “turning point” or transition from a labour exporting to a labour importing country. It also includes the world’s most populous economy, the People’s Republic of China, which still exercises strict controls on labour migration, a situation, which could change dramatically in the foreseeable future. APEC, including as it does all the major economies in the fastest growing dynamic economic region in the world, is also ideally placed to provide an answer to the growing debate on whether globalisation will accelerate or slow down the present labour migratory pressures.