Non-resident Workers Research Articles

Case C-27/23 Hocinx: Business as usual in equal treatment of frontier workers with an alarming twist

Case C-27/23 Hocinx can be seen as a follow-up to the 2020 C-802/18 Caisse pour l’avenir des enfants case. For a second time around, the legislation of Luxemburg provided for differential conditions for the award of its family allowances, between workers resident in Luxemburg and non-resident (frontier) workers. The Court found for indirect discrimination on the basis of nationality under Article 7(2) of Regulation 492/2011 and Article 45 TFEU. This not a surprising outcome and in fact is fully consistent with previous case law. There is, however, a part of the judgment which certainly raises eyebrows and causes concern. Regulation 883/2004 (and its Implementing Regulation 987/2009) has been disregarded, despite the conditions for its applicability being clearly fulfilled. What is even more vexatious is the treatment of Article 67 of Regulation 883/2004, where the Court seems to overlook its own previous rich line of case law. Although the Court has once more sent the signal that practices which restrict equal treatment of frontier workers will not get past its scrutiny, the relationship between Regulation 492/2011 and Regulation 883/2004 is not treated appropriately.

Family benefits under the coordination of social security systems in the EU: equal benefits for local and non-resident workers – a gloss to the Judgment of the Court of Justice of 16 June 2022. C-328/20

Family benefits under the coordination of social security systems in the EU: equal benefits for local and non-resident workers – a gloss to the Judgment of the Court of Justice of 16 June 2022. C-328/20

Psychological Issues of Domestic Workers: A Qualitative Investigation

The present study is a qualitative exploration of psychological problems faced by domestic workers in the Islamabad and Rawalpindi regions. The study was conducted with only female domestic workers, including both resident and non-resident workers with an age range from 18 years onwards and having work experience of more than one year. The study was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, six focus group discussions were carried out, while in the second phase, fifteen in-depth interviews were conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the psychological problems faced by domestic workers. The thematic analysis approach revealed ten themes, including depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, Stress, helplessness, anger, feelings of insecurity, guilt, feelings of inferiority, repressed and unfulfilled desires, and dissatisfaction with life circumstances. Resident domestic workers reported more psychological issues due to the nature of their workplace environment as compared to non-resident domestic workers. This further hurts their sense of self, physical and mental health, cognitions, relationship with others, and psychological well-being.

The Impact of Remittance on Consumption and Investment: A Case of Province Five of Nepal

Background: Remittance remains a key source of external resource flows for developing countries. Remittance inflows are the addition of migrant remittance inflow and compensation of employees which include current transfers by migrant workers, with wages and salaries earned by non-resident workers. Remittance is an essential aspect of leveraging remittance to promote economic development. In the context of Nepal, remittance recipient households tend to spend more on consumption, health and education as compared to remittance non-receiving households.
 Objective: This study examines the impact of remittances on the consumption and investment in the context of province five of Nepal.
 Methods: This study is based on primary sources of data with 570 observations. The primary survey was used to extract the information from the respondents regarding the remittance amount, consumption and investment of individual household from the families of Rupandehi, Dang and Rolpa districts of Nepal whose family member has been working out of country. The regression models are estimated to test the significance and impact of remittances on the investment and consumption. Consumption and investment are the dependent variables. The independent variables are remittance, annual domestic income, household size, family residential area and level of education.
 Results: The results show that there is a positive relationship between remittances and consumption. This indicates that higher the amount of money inflow as a remittance, higher would be the consumption. Similarly, there is positive relationship domestic income and consumption which indicates that higher the level of domestic income, higher would be the consumption. Likewise, there is a positive relationship between household size and consumption. It indicates that larger the members in a family, higher would be the consumption. The result also reveals that there is a positive relationship between level of education and consumption. It indicates that higher the level of education, higher would be the consumption.
 Conclusion: Remittance has been leading to the consumption and investment behavior of rural household in province five. Remittance followed by family size is the most influencing factors that explain the changes in consumption and investment of families in province five of Nepal.
 Implication: This study can be useful to concerned authorities for further planning of proper investment of remittance.

Responding to COVID: How to Deal with Nearly $100 Billion in Wasted Incentives

This article urges policymakers to cut down on ineffective and costly tax expenditures. Tax expenditures aim to incentivize beneficial economic outcomes; the tax jurisdiction surrenders the right to a portion of its tax base in anticipation of economic benefits. While tax expenditures are not inherently bad or good, many believe that most tax incentive programs would fail a cost-benefit analysis.Ideally, tax incentives target economic activity that would not occur in the absence of the incentive. And to be considered a success, the benefit of the activity must outweigh the cost of the incentive. For example, if the goal of a tax incentive is job creation, the costs, such as loss in revenue, must be weighed against the precise nature of the jobs gained. If those jobs are merely temporary, for example, they are less beneficial. The article draws attention to a critical failing of many tax incentive programs: their application is too broad. When incentives are poorly calibrated, they apply to unintentionally targeted taxpayers whose incentivized activity is not cost-beneficial. Broad incentives also benefit taxpayers that would have performed the beneficial activity regardless of the incentive, resulting in wasted money. Supporters of tax expenditures too often look only at the activity of the targeted group and not at the costs before determining that the policy was a success.The article looks to the film industry, which has historically been benefitted by substantial tax incentives, as an example. Studies show that nonresident workers are often brought in to perform work on the film, and the jobs obtained by resident workers are temporary and low-paying. The article concludes by urging an immediate moratorium on existing tax incentives. Tax incentives ought to survive a rigorous cost-benefit analysis from a commission composed of neutral politicians and impartial evaluators. Each analysis should proceed on a beneficiary-by-beneficiary basis to ensure that the benefits truly outweigh the costs.

What drives long distance commuting into Australian regions? A spatial panel model approach

Impacts of long distance commuting (LDC) on a host region have been a topic of research interest for some time. Recently, however, criticisms have surfaced about the validity of studies which address this topic. Specifically, temporal variability and spatial interaction have rarely been considered. This article argues that a single model which jointly incorporates these two aspects can improve the predictive power of LDC impacts. Using spatial panel modelling, 516 Local Government Areas (LGAs) across Australia over two census periods (2006 and 2011) were used to explore drivers of LDC. It was found that local labour market characteristics had minimal influence on recruitment strategies of firms that typically use LDC. Housing affordability does not impact on the decision of non-resident workers to either migrate into a region or adopt LDC into that region. However, local service provision and the availability of rental accommodation reduces the uptake of LDC. In addition, higher turnover of the resident population erodes social capital in host regions, which reduces the attractiveness of the local area and leads to increased use of LDC.

Resident Versus Non-Resident Employment Impacts Associated with Marcellus Shale Development

There is much debate surrounding the employment effect of shale gas development, especially as it relates to extraction counties. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many jobs are filled by non-resident workers. We examine the impact that shale gas development has had on local employment in Pennsylvania. Using data that links workers to their personal residences we find that Marcellus activity has had a positive, albeit modest, impact on job growth. We also find that the impact is 50 percent lower using data with only county residents suggesting that traditional employment data may overestimate the employment impacts on residents from shale development.

Fly-in, fly-out, drive-in, drive-out: The Australian mining boom and its impacts on the local economy

A traditional question in local economic development is whether it is better to take work to the workers or workers to the work. The widespread use of fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) or drive-in, drive-out (DIDO) to support Australia’s mining industry raises a variant to this question: is it possible to promote regional development without a permanent, resident workforce? FIFO and DIDO have become the predominant ways of providing a permanent operational workforce to the mining industry. It explains why cities such as Perth, Brisbane and Mackay have large populations of mining workers while mining operations are located in remote parts of the country. FIFO brings advantages to mining companies and employees but is generally viewed as antithetical to local economic development: it is accused of eroding the viability of the resource towns that emerged with earlier phases of the mining industry and of generating social problems in both the places where FIFO workers reside permanently and around their temporary work locations. The offsetting advantages appear to provide a strong case for the use of non-resident workers but they arise from the particular context in which mining is occurring rather than being an inherent feature of this form of employment. A case study of the proposed Mt. Todd gold mine located in close proximity to the Northern Territory town of Katherine shows how the potential use of FIFO workers encourages local support for mining operations.

Littering dynamics in a coastal industrial setting: The influence of non-resident populations

We examined if there is truth to the preconceptions that non-resident workers (including FIFO/DIDO’s) detract from communities. We used marine debris to test this, specifically focussing on littering behaviour and evidence of awareness of local environmental programs that focus on marine debris. Littering was most common at recreational areas, then beaches and whilst boating. Twenty-five percent of respondents that admit to littering, reported no associated guilt with their actions. Younger respondents litter more frequently. Thus, non-resident workers litter at the same rate as permanent residents, visitors and tourists in this region, within this study. Few respondents are aware of the environmental programs that operate in their local region. Awareness was influenced by a respondent’s residency (non-residents are less aware), age, and level of education. To address this failure we recommend that industries, that use non-resident workers, should develop inductions that expose new workers to the environmental programs in their region.

Experiences of non-resident nurses in Australia's remote Northern Territory

There is emerging concern in the health literature about the impacts of non-resident work modes on the quality of service delivery particularly in sparsely populated or remote areas, but little is known about what non-resident health workers themselves see as the advantages and disadvantages of their modes of work, and whether non-resident workers face the same or different social/personal and professional barriers to rural and remote practice as their resident colleagues. Although literature from the resources sector provides insights into the expected social/personal advantages and disadvantages, very little is said about professional issues. This article reports on semi-structured interviews conducted with seven non-resident nurses working in remote locations in Australia's Northern Territory in 2011. All nurses lived outside the Northern Territory when not at work. The interviews focussed on how the separation of place of residence and place of work affected nurses' private and professional lives. Social/personal issues faced by these nurses are similar to what has been reported in the broader literature on non-resident work. Nurses who successfully engage in non-resident work develop strategies to manage their lives across multiple locations. However, questions are raised about the professional impacts of non-resident work, in terms of the continuing competency of the workers themselves, the performance of work teams that consist of resident and non-resident workers, and the maintenance of context-specific skills. Non-resident work is likely to become more common in remote areas such as Australia's Northern Territory because of the advantages workers experience in their personal lives. There is an urgent need to address professional issues associated with non-resident work modes.

Economic growth and inequality in Singapore: The case for a minimum wage

Abstract.In the context of Singapore's ageing population, the employment of large numbers of low‐skilled foreign workers is proving to be a major challenge to inclusive growth because of the stagnation of low‐wage workers' incomes. In order to address this problem, the author makes the case for introducing a minimum wage to complement existing in‐work benefit schemes. After addressing the commonly voiced objections to a minimum wage system, he suggests ways in which a minimum wage could be implemented in Singapore. New measures to enhance the social safety net and foster more sustainable economic growth are also proposed.

Transmigrant Identities and Human Capital Flows in Singapore

Singapore provides a useful model of how the flow of transnationals and their economic, political and social impacts are managed. Singapore is one of the world’s most open economies but its low total fertility rate (TFR) has threatened its economic growth and survival. As a result, the government has been recruiting foreign human capital in order to expand its working population and economic growth. The imperative was business to leverage on global growth in 2005 but the city-state was not adequately prepared for the huge influx of foreigners or non-resident workers. The number of non-resident workers increased by 100 per cent to more than 1.3 million in about five to six years from 2005. Some of the unintended ‘spillover’ effects have been rising inflation, increasing competition for jobs, escalating property prices and overcrowding on public transport. Societal tensions have emerged around the concept of ‘us’ and the ‘other’ in Singapore. The paper discusses how the state and companies have implemented programmes to reduce the ‘gaps’ between local and foreign human capital in Singapore. Some of these have included orientation programmes, activities with voluntary welfare organisations and other interactions under the overall integration policy the state has implemented.

Combining the Mobile Workforce and Telecommuter Tax Acts

Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act of 2012 (“the Mobile Workforce Act”) and the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act of 2012 (“the Telecommuter Act”) each respond to the pressing national need to rationalize the states’ income taxation of nonresident workers in light of modern technology and the work patterns such technology facilitates. Both Acts must be passed to create a comprehensive framework for the states’ income taxation of nonresident workers in the 21st century.The Mobile Workforce Act addresses the question today generally denoted as nexus, that is, who can tax. The Telecommuter Act addresses the question which is today denominated as apportionment, namely, how much can be taxed. Congress must answer both inquiries properly, lest multiple and excessive state tax burdens on nonresident workers unnecessarily interfere with the efficient work patterns of a modern economy.

The resource boom's underbelly: Criminological impacts of mining development

Australia is currently in the midst of a major resources boom. Resultant growing demands for labour in regional and remote areas have accelerated the recruitment of non-resident workers, mostly contractors, who work extended block rosters of 12-hour shifts and are accommodated in work camps, often adjacent to established mining towns. Serious social impacts of these practices, including violence and crime, have generally escaped industry, government and academic scrutiny. This paper highlights some of these impacts on affected regional communities and workers and argues that post-industrial mining regimes serve to mask and privatize these harms and risks, shifting them on to workers, families and communities.

Assessing the social impacts of the resources boom on rural communities

Until the 1970s mining leases were issued by state governments subject to conditions that companies build or substantially finance local community infrastructure, including housing, streets, transport, schools, hospitals and recreation facilities [Houghton (1993). Long-distance commuting: A new approach to mining in Australia. The Geographical Journal, 159(3), 281–290]. Townships and communities went hand in hand with mining development. However, in the past 30 years mining companies have moved progressively to an expeditionary strategy for natural resources extraction – operating a continuous production cycle of 12 hour shifts – increasingly reliant on non-resident, fly-in, fly-out or drive-in, drive-out (FIFO/DIDO) workers who typically work block rosters, reside in work camps adjacent to existing communities and travel large distances from their homes. This paper presents the key findings of our survey into the social impacts of this kind of mining development in Qld. Based on the results we argue that the social license to develop new mining projects is strong for projects requiring a 25% or less non-resident workforce, diminishes significantly thereafter and is very weak for projects planning to recruit a non-resident workforce in excess of 75%. This finding is significant because there are at least 67 new mining projects worth around $50 billion undergoing social impact assessment in Queensland, and many it appears are planning to hire significant proportions of non-resident workers. The paper concludes that this is a growing social justice issue requiring Australian Government leadership in formulating a consistent national policy framework for guiding sustainable mining development into the next millennium.

LSM: A DSGE model for Luxembourg

Luxembourg is a small open economy with a set of particular features, including rather limited competition in the domestic goods market, strong union power, and a segmented labor market for resident and non-resident workers. In this paper we develop a medium scale DSGE model that captures these features, calibrate it to mimic the actual behavior of the key macroeconomic aggregates, and use it to conduct policy experiments aimed at relaxing some of the existing rigidities in the goods and labor market.

Globalization and earnings among native-born and immigrant populations of racial and ethnic groups in Canada

This is the first statistical analysis to understand how economic globalization affects earnings of native-born and immigrant populations with different racial and ethnic backgrounds in Canada. Draw on four measures of economic globalization: number of non-resident workers in CMAs, number of companies with foreign investment, size of financial industry, and volume of equity trading, our study finds that the effects of economic globalization on individual earnings is influenced by the particular aspect of economic globalization and the group being considered. Specifically, economic globalization is beneficial to nativeborn members of visible minority groups and is very sensitive to their immigrant members.

Migration and foreign trade: Further results

In this note, we use the production-theory approach to immigration in an open-economy setting to investigate the role of nonresident workers in Swiss aggregate production. Unlike earlier work in this area, exports are explicitly taken into account. Indeed, a statistical test for global separability between inputs and outputs reveals that exports and products intended for domestic use cannot be aggregated. Our results show that immigration tends to stimulate imports and to shift the output mix towards nontraded goods, thereby impacting negatively on the trade account.

Pathways to legal immigration.

In this paper we use the New Immigrant Survey Pilot Study (NISP) to describe the amount and kind of experience that immigrants accumulate in the United States before they become permanent resident aliens. The NISP surveyed a representative sample of legal immigrants who acquired residence papers during July and August of 1996, yielding a completed sample of 1,135 adults. Our analysis revealed that roughly two-thirds of these newly arrived immigrants had prior experience in the United States within one of six basic categories: illegal border-crossers, visa abusers, non-resident visitors, non-resident workers, students or exchange visitors, and refugees/asylees. Each of these pathways to legal immigration was associated with a different profile with respect to nationality, social background, and economic status. Using simple earnings regressions we demonstrate how these differences can yield misleading conclusions about the process of immigrant adaptation and assimilation, even if measured effects are reasonably accurate. We suggest that social scientists should change the way they think and ask about immigrants' arrival in the United States.

The epidemiology of ocular trauma in Singapore: perspective from the emergency service of a large tertiary hospital.

To describe the epidemiology of ocular trauma from the perspective of the emergency service of a large tertiary hospital in Singapore. A prospective survey was conducted over a 3 month period (August to October 1997) on all patients seen at the ophthalmic unit at the Singapore General Hospital's emergency service. Data on clinical presentation, type and cause of injury and use of eye protective devices (EPD) were collected via a standardised interview and examination. A total of 870 persons presented with a diagnosis of ocular trauma, out of the 1,631 patients seen during the study period. Compared with non-trauma cases, trauma cases were more likely to be male (odds ratio (OR): 4.2, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 3.2, 5.4), non-residents (OR: 6.2, 95% CI: 3.7, 10.5), younger than 40 years of age (OR: 3.2, 95% CI: 2.7, 4.1) and less likely to require follow-up or hospital admission (OR: 0.2, 95% CI: 0.2, 0.3). The three most common types of injuries were superficial foreign body (58.2%), corneal abrasion (24.9%) and blunt trauma (12.6%), while open globe injury occurred in only 17 cases (2%). Comparison with a 10% random sample of all cases seen in the previous 9 months (n = 284) revealed no significant time variation in the types of injuries (p = 0.63). Work-related injuries accounted for 590 (71.4%) cases, where grinding, cutting metal and drilling were the specific activities in more than 90% of the cases. In appropriate settings, only 21.7% of patients with work-related injuries used EPD; 43.7% were provided with EPD, but did not use them at the time of injury; and the remaining 34.6% reported that EPD were not provided. Ocular trauma at the emergency service level in Singapore involved mainly young non-resident men, were work-related and associated with well-defined activities, and were generally minor. The low prevalence of EPD use reinforces the need for a review of the design and implementation of occupational eye safety programmes, especially among non-resident workers.