Migrant workers’ wage offers: the paradox of the involvement of recruitment intermediaries

Abstract

Abstract Recruitment of labor migrants is often mediated by informal intermediaries (subagents) liaising between formal recruitment agents and potential migrants. Many countries of origin of migrant workers are struggling to reign in subagents in the recruitment process for labor migration. This article shows that focusing on migrants can compensate for this difficulty. Using primary data collected from current and potential migrant households in fixed effect models, this article shows that subagents’ unauthorized conduct of collecting passports is correlated with 27–80 per cent lower promised recruitment incentives, while subagents’ conduct of requesting fees for their services is linked to a 22–38 per cent increase in promised wages and 45–82 per cent increase in promised recruitment incentives. Migrants’ misperception that the subagent is compulsory in the recruitment process is associated with lowering wages by 7–15 per cent, while the misperception that subagent showed the identification card is associated with 10–14 per cent lower promised wages, and 32–72 per cent lower promised incentives. These findings show that better informing potential migrants about the role, formal status, and the implications of the involvement of subagents would lead to better wage and incentive negotiations. This approach would contribute toward facilitating orderly, safe, regular, and responsible recruitment for labor migration envisioned by Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration.