Foreign Labor Policy Research Articles

Abe’s incrementalism: an institutionalist analysis of immigration policy reform during the second Abe administration

The late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s second stint in power 2012 to 2020 oversaw numerous ambitious reforms to Japan’s immigration regime whilst still maintaining the country’s status quo of ‘no immigration policy’. This status quo was established through the 1990 system and denies both the admittance of unskilled foreign labor and formal immigration policy, instead relying on ‘side-door’ policies to recruit most foreign workers. The goal of this article is to evaluate the policy outcomes of Abe’s reforms by taking a macro-level approach and using a historical institutionalist methodological framework. Through classifying Abe’s major policy initiatives utilizing the mechanisms of institutional change, I analyze whether despite Abe’s own insistence, he has changed the immigration status quo in a fundamental way. In the conclusion, I argue that in combination with recent reforms by his successors, the potential for a fundamental change in Japan’s immigration policy trajectory is present – even though this change has not taken place yet.

The Restructuring Righteous Foreign Worker Regulations: The Challenge of Enormous Influx of Foreign Workers

Foreign workers are needed to overcome the challenge of a shortage of professional workers. However, the ineffectiveness of foreign worker licensing regulations in Indonesia hampers the supply of qualified foreign workers and impacts regional levy revenues. This research aims to structure the rules for the fair use of foreign workers. This is normative juridical research with conceptual, statutory, and comparative approaches. The results of a comparison of foreign worker regulations in Indonesia and Singapore are used to develop a regulatory concept that is more responsive to the use of foreign workers, especially in the health sector. The idea of licensing law and justice theory is used for analysis. The research results show that the regulations on using foreign workers in Indonesia are not yet comprehensive regarding the rules for qualifying foreign workers as a condition for issuing permits and justifying good public services. The issuance of permits to use foreign workers has been hampered because several regions do not yet have implementing regulations that impact the collection of regional levies. Second, setting up mechanisms for utilizing foreign workers in Singapore is relatively easy and successful with strict digital-based permit requirements. Thus, Indonesia needs to adopt a foreign labor policy system with strict requirements for issuing permits that are accessible in terms of bureaucracy, changes to laws, implementation of regulations, and drafting of regional regulations.

БНСУ дахь монголчуудын ажил эрхлэлт ба БНСУ-ын гадаадаас ажиллах хүч авах бодлогын өөрчлөлт

Currently, the country where the largest number of overseas Mongolians live and work is Korea, and they account for approximately 3-5% of the Korean labor market. As of December 2023, there is a total of 54,846 Mongolians living in South Korea. The main purpose of this article is to examine the current status of Mongolian workers in Korea and what the Mongolian government should pay attention to in changing Korea's foreign worker policy. Mongolian workers in Korea are working hard for the Mongolian economy and households. However, they are constantly facing various problems, such as difficulties caused by illegal work and human rights violations. Recently, the number of Mongolians living in Korea has been increasing, and there are studies showing that the status of Mongolians in Korean society is improving, but there are many cases where they become illegal immigrants during the period of their employment contracts. In order to improve the treatment of Mongolian workers working in Korea in the future, it is important to focus on improving working and living conditions and improving language skills. While Korea's population growth rate is expected to decline, labor demand in the manufacturing sector is expected to increase in the future. Accordingly, Korea's foreign worker policy is changing, and the main goal of this change is to reduce the number of illegal immigrants and non-professional workers. The Korean government is focusing on meeting, labor market demands by allowing foreigners with high knowledge of the Korean language, ability to adapt to Korean culture and social life, and professional skills to live in Korea for a long period of time. Due to the Korean government's change in foreign labor policy, employment opportunities for Mongolians will increase. In particular, the Korean government needs to attract college graduates and professionals, study the possibility of supporting them when they return to their home country, and implement related specific policies. Examples of the measures include job creation, business support, loans, and simplifying housing loan system.

GOOD GOVERNANCE AND CHALLENGES OF MANAGING MALAYSIA’S DEPENDENCY ON FOREIGN LABOR

Good governance concept plays an important role in the modern government system through creating sustainable public policies. Good governance is a concept that has been used globally, including in Malaysia. Ironically, Malaysia has the highest number of foreign laborers in Southeast Asian countries reaching approximately six million. The dependency is shockingly becoming a major concern for the government in formulating policy. In formulating policy, it is important to consider various stakeholders such as employers and Malaysian people. Therefore, the government is trying hard to find an equilibrium point in managing and the best way to reduce dependency on foreign labor. This article examined various issues and challenges in managing Malaysia’s foreign labor dependency, including the good governance concept perspective. This study uses a qualitative research approach. There are 7 key stakeholders identified through purposive sampling. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken to identify and understand the issues and challenges faced in the foreign labor governance. The findings found out that Malaysia’s foreign labor governance has overlapping governance arrangement, vague job scope, poor governance management system, and lack of mutual participation. Therefore, it is important to improve the foreign labor governance and policy in Malaysia because shortcomings in governance arrangements hinder the implementation of effective policies. The improvements are crucial to reduce the dependency on foreign labor and Malaysia’s development efforts will progress efficiently.

The Indebted and Silent Worker: Paternalistic Labor Management in Foreign Labor Policy in Japan

This paper analyzes the characteristic of labor management in the Japanese labor market through the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP)—one of Japan’s foreign labor policies to supply labor force from Asian neighbors into domestic sectors. Previous studies on TITP were mainly focused on institutional and industrial analyses. These studies often focus on how trainees are inserted into restructured labor market to augment labor shortage amid global economic competition. On the other hand, this paper focuses on the 1) ideological analysis of the framework of government policy and 2) its function on actual labor management in TITP. This perspective seeks to contribute to an understanding of the mechanism of migrant control by the state and labor management by the employer. As a result, this paper shows, how the state and employer manage the “silent workers” by using paternalistic labor management and the On (恩) ideology of indebtedness.

Foreign Labour Policy and Employment in Manufacturing: The Case of Malaysia

ABSTRACT The over-dependence of Malaysian manufacturing on unskilled foreign workers suggests the lack of policy alignment with the needs of the labour market. Despite the use of “price restrictions” (foreign worker levy and minimum wage) to control the demand for foreign labour, there are few indications of policy instruments having influenced the foreign employment growth rate. This article estimates industry-level foreign employment, paying attention to the roles of levy system, recruitment system and minimum wage policy, to provide a perspective on labour market administration. Using a panel data set of manufacturing industries for 1985–2014, upward revisions in the levy over the 1990s were found to be significant deterrents to the growth rates of foreign employment. The increase in levy in 2005 however failed to reduce this growth as it came in direct conflict with the introduction of outsourcing of foreign workers. The article suggests that with better policy co-ordination with supply-side instruments, a levy is a desirable instrument to align immigration with the objective of reducing foreign worker dependency. To appropriately price labour market needs, strict enforcement of levy payments by employers is recommended along with a fine-tuning for the existing levy to make it a multi-tier levy system for Malaysia.

Labor administration in the Federal Republic of Germany in the early 1950s: coming to terms with the Nazi past and its consequences on foreign labor policies

This paper examines continuities and discontinuities in the Federal Republic of Germany’s foreign labor policies in the early 1950s. The aim is to establish the consequences that facing the Nazi past had for policy formulation in West German labor administration. To that end, this paper focuses particularly on the 1933 foreign worker’s ordinance (Verordnung über ausländische Arbeitnehmer vom 23.1.1933, VOüAA) and post-1945 debates surrounding its reinstatement. VOüAA formed the foundation of Nazi-era foreign labor policy, but it was brought back into force in the early 1950s without careful consideration of the significance of this fact. The backdrop for this re-enactment was the post-war alignment of the interests of the military government and German labor administrators. The other contributing factor was the stature of Friedrich Syrup, who enacted VOüAA. Despite his involvement in the Nazi regime as president of its labor administration, Syrup was held in high regard even after his death in 1945. This was due to his former subordinates lauding his administrative achievements as a way of self-justification. The reinstatement of VOüAA can thus be considered a result of these post- 1945 labor administrators finding a way to reconcile with the past.

The impact of population dynamics and foreign labour policy on dependency: the case of Singapore

Understanding population dynamics is crucial to understanding current and future health care needs and designing systems to meet those needs. In this paper, we provide a methodological approach to investigate population dynamics in a system dynamics model configurable to initialise in dynamic equilibrium or disequilibrium. We then use the model to investigate how the current measured population compares to a population of the same size in equilibrium, and how a dependency ratio will change over time under different scenarios. We apply our approach to Singapore, which, like many other countries, has a rapidly increasing proportion of elderly in the population.

State and immigration regulations: shared experiences of foreign domestics in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Canada

This paper examines female migrant domestic workers in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Canada, and the way the foreign labor policy of these countries shapes these women’s experiences of migration and employment. It demonstrates that tying live-in domestics to their employers for employment and immigration status makes these women vulnerable to potential abuse and exploitation. The passage of both state and international labor standards demonstrates the success of domestic workers’ decades-long activism at local, national, and transnational levels.

Plantation Systems, Labour Regimes and the State in Malaysia, 1900–2012

Plantation production systems, plantation labour regimes and a foreign workforce typified European investment in the large‐scale agricultural sector in colonial Malaya. Analogous structures and trends continue to be influential in Malaysia's contemporary commercial agricultural sector. Initially, the politics and organization of the East India Company and the pursuit of tropical commodities corresponded with the facilitation and channelling of Indian migrant labour for coffee and sugar cultivation in Malaya. The subsequent development of the rubber industry represented the first major transition to more highly capitalized large‐scale farming for international markets. In the 1990s, oil palm replaced rubber as the premier crop in a second agrarian transition, consistent with Malaysia's economic and political imperatives, social policy and the global demand for palm oil. There are important continuities in the rubber and oil palm agricultural transitions. These include comparable plantation structures, labour systems and a continuing reliance on migrant labour, despite the growth of the national labour force. The correlation between plantation systems and Malaysia's foreign labour policy should be viewed through the prism of challenges to large‐scale agricultural production and countervailing forces that might be acting on the Malaysian state.

Mode 4: (Mode 4 Issues in the Trade Negotiations: Progress and Policy Implications for Korea)

Mode 4: (Mode 4 Issues in the Trade Negotiations: Progress and Policy Implications for Korea)

Southeast Asian Labor Migration to Korea: Origin-Country Factors and Policy Implications

South Korea has emerged as a major destination for labor migration in the Asia-Pacific region in the last two decades. In 1991, the total number of foreign-born population in Korea was 167,000. At the end of 2011, the number reached 1.4 million while 705,000 of them are estimated to participate in the Korean labor market. The migration process has largely been government-driven and shaped by two policy goals. First, unskilled migrants were allowed in to mitigate the labor shortage in the small and medium enter-prises but only on a temporary and limited basis. Second, skilled migrants were actively sought and allowed to migrate to Korea under favorable conditions. Yet twenty years later, the results are rather disappointing. Contrary to the policy intentions, the majority of migrant workers in Korea are unskilled workers, whereas skilled workers account for a tiny fraction of the foreign labor force (6.8%). The arrival of unskilled workers has certainly reduced chronic labor shortages in certain sectors of the Korean economy, such as manufacturing, agriculture and livestock farming, and construction. It has, however, raised a host of serious social and economic challenges. The immediate concerns are the potentially negative impact of migration on the employment and wages of Korean workers. A large population of undocumented migrants, a much higher share than Taiwan and Japan, continue to be a problem. It has also been suggested that the continuous supply of cheap labor keeps in place industries that would not have survived otherwise. Finally, the arrival of migrants, often with lower socioeconomic status, has created social and cultural tensions in a country unfamiliar with ethnic and cultural diversity. On the other hand, government efforts to recruit highly skilled professionals from abroad have not been very successful. The challenges associated with labor migration in Korea require a comprehensive overhaul of Korea’s foreign labor policy. Yet, understanding the “supply side” — the structural and policy factors that contribute to labor migration in origin countries — will help improve bilateral labor cooperation. Aside from China, Southeast Asia is the largest sending region of migrants to Korea. Of the foreign population in Korea, 20% are from Southeast Asia. Understanding the structural and policy factors behind the migration of labor from Southeast Asia can therefore help better understand migration issues between Southeast Asia and Korea. This brief examines the structural factors and government policies that drive labor migration from four Southeast Asian countries: Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Economic development, the evolution of foreign labor and immigration policy, and the shift to multiculturalism in South Korea

Since South Korea's economic transformation from a labor to a capital economy, it has had to grapple with issues like labor shortages and demographic changes such as low birth rates and a rapidly aging population that threaten long-term growth. In order to sustain its development, the country has increasingly turned to foreign labor and selective immigration as countermeasures for its economic and demographic problems. The state manages the influx of foreigners under a framework of “multiculturalism” that professes openness towards becoming a “multicultural society” despite resistance rooted in ethno-nationalism and a history of homogeneity. Despite criticism on its shortcomings and the failure of multiculturalism elsewhere, multiculturalism has provided the South Korean state with a convenient and flexible, if ambiguous, framework under which a diverse range of policies and programs for improving the lives of foreigners and immigrants could be adopted while simultaneously dealing with its economic and de...

Liberalizing employment of foreign workers in Korea: Public perception and assessment

The Korean government recently and expediently proposed legislative change to greatly liberalize the employment of foreign workers, and the Korean congress also legislated the government proposal. As in the case of other law-making processes, civil perception and assessment of the potential social cost and benefit of such a change were important factors to be considered by administrators and politicians in deciding whether to adopt the new legislation on foreign workers. In order to assess the socially perceived cost and benefit of adopting legislation to liberalize the employment of foreign workers, this study employs the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), a method to assess the monetary value of non-market commodities and hence here to measure the value of the social effects of the liberalization. This assessment will provide insight into the development of policy on the liberalization of employment of foreign workers and help evaluate whether public support or resistance held sway over the Korean government's attitude in the law-making process on foreign labor. The empirical analysis shows that Korean citizens perceived that the introduction of foreign workers would have positive effects such as an improvement in the nation's image and a reduction in the psychological rejection of foreign workers, yet, they also perceived it would have negative effects such as an increase in demand for public order and administration to manage foreign workers and address associated social issues. Social costs were calculated as a monthly average of 9299 KW (Korean won) per household, but social benefits were calculated as 11,276 KW. If these values are applied to the nation's total number of households, the net social benefit resulting from the introduction of foreign workers is estimated at approximately 340 billion KW annually. Therefore, if foreign labor policy is appropriately improved, Korean citizen tend to presume that liberalizing the employment of foreign workers would generate net social benefits.

The politics of foreign labor policy in Korea and Japan

We test the comparative foreign labor policies of Korea and Japan within a vein of international relations literature addressing the effects of international norms on changes in state policies. Building on the efforts to emphasize a state's domestic structure as a source of variations in the impact of international norms, this study enriches this debate further by demonstrating the role of the Korean state in developing international human rights norms domestically. In contrast to the previous studies that tend to dichotomize between states and human rights activists, which result in focusing their empirical studies on the question of whether states are constrained in developing immigration policies under the influence of international human rights norms, we demonstrate that state actors in coalition with human rights activists were actively involved in the process of enacting the Employment of Foreign Workers Act (EFWA) in Korea. More precisely, by offering a detailed account of how Korea finally suc ceeded in adopting the EFWA in 2003 after two failed attempts in 1997 and 2000, we attribute the success to the more extensive, organized pro-foreign workers coalition of state actors and human rights activists over the course of actions. When this observation is applied to Japan, the absence of an active role of the state accounts for Japan's relative silence on the EFWA.

Emerging Strains in GCC Labor Markets

Unemployment pressures among nationals are emerging in the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). 2 At a time when a rapidly growing number of young nationals are entering the labor force and governments are no longer able to act as employers of first and last resort, the non-oil sector continues to rely on expatriate labor to meet its labor requirements in most GCC countries. In this environment, policymakers face the related challenges of addressing unemployment pressures while striking a balance between maintaining a liberal foreign labor policy and a reasonable level of competitiveness of the non-oil sector. Using a matching function framework, this paper examines labor market policies that are likely to expand the ability to hire nationals in the non-oil sector. It finds that an effective labor strategy should focus on strengthening investment in human capital, adopting institutional reforms, and promoting a vibrant non-oil economy.

Emerging Strains in GCC Labor Markets

Unemployment pressures among nationals are emerging in the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). At a time when a rapidly growing number of young nationals are entering the labor force and governments are no longer able to act as employers of first and last resort, the non-oil sector continues to rely on expatriate labor to meet its labor requirements in most GCC countries. In this environment, policymakers face the related challenges of addressing unemployment pressures while striking a balance between maintaining a liberal foreign labor policy and a reasonable level of competitiveness of the non-oil sector. Using a matching function framework, this paper examines labor market policies that are likely to expand the ability to hire nationals in the non-oil sector. It finds that an effective labor strategy should focus on strengthening investment in human capital, adopting institutional reforms, and promoting a vibrant non-oil economy.

Politics of Foreign Labor Policy in Taiwan

Politics of Foreign Labor Policy in Taiwan

Transience and settlement: Singapore's foreign labor policy.

"Foreigners constitute 15 percent of the population and over 20 percent of the labor force in Singapore.... This large foreign labor force is managed by a comprehensive and highly selective foreign labor policy, which is described in this paper. The strict enforcement of a guestworker policy of transience on the one hand, and the liberal encouragement of settlement on the other, are the twin pillars of this policy. Seen originally as a dispensable appendage to a labor-scarce economy, foreign labor has now become integral to the economic and increasingly, population policy of the country, as evidenced by the recent announcement of a national policy to ¿attract foreign talent'."

The Political Impact of Foreign Labor: A Re-evaluation of the Western European Experience

Foreign workers in Western Europe generally have been portrayed as powerless and voiceless. Especially for contemporary Marxists, foreign labor policy is seen as serving to reinforce the political status quo. This article suggests that foreign workers in Western Europe participate politically more often and in more diverse ways than generally thought. Their participation often is politically disruptive and has contributed to the growing perception that the sociopolitical costs of foreign labor policy outweigh its economic benefits.