Even with “Remarkable” Progress in Advancing Fair and Ethical Recruitment of Migrant Workers, Significant Challenges Remain, New Brief Finds
WASHINGTON — As more people move internationally in search of work, questions of how and under what conditions workers are recruited and employed have attracted increased scrutiny. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar have shone a bright light on the risks migrants can face, the complex web of intermediaries that connect employers and prospective employees, and the ongoing need for better regulation of recruitment and improved protections for workers.
The international community has made remarkable progress over the past 15 years in developing and promoting common standards on fair and ethical recruitment. This has involved, among other things, defining recruitment fees and other related costs, promoting the principle that employers should bear the costs of recruitment and developing recommendations on how governments can better regulate recruitment.
The formidable challenge ahead will be building on this progress and more fully implementing recruitment standards so that more migrant workers benefit from them, as a policy brief out today makes clear. Stakeholders will also need to find ways to address the changing world of work, with the rise of freelance workers and third-party employment, as well as online job portals that bring both opportunity in the potential for reduced recruitment costs but also peril in the form of scams.
In Consolidating Gains: Lessons and Priorities for Promoting Fair and Ethical Recruitment, Migration Policy Institute (MPI) Senior Policy Analyst Kate Hooper explores progress toward fair and ethical recruitment to date and priorities for future work by governments, employers and recruiters.
Efforts to promote fair and ethical recruitment have fallen short into a few categories, including government implementation and enforcement of recruitment laws or regulations. Employers have a key role to play in implementing fair and ethical recruitment practices across their supply chains, the brief notes.
And there must be wider adoption in the recruitment industry of codes of conduct and regulations advanced by recruiters. Transforming the recruitment industry “will require moving away from reliance on the 'moral' case for fair and ethical recruitment and focusing more fully on the 'business' case for compliance," Hooper writes.
The brief is the third publication resulting from a multi-year research partnership between MPI and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s Thematic Section Migration and Forced Displacement to support the development of global solutions for migration-related challenges. The first explored how the COVID-19 pandemic affected recruitment and other costs for migrant workers at every stage of their journey. The second examined integration challenges and opportunities that small and mid-sized cities face when receiving significant arrivals of migrants and displaced persons. An upcoming publication will review the role of the fintech sector in advancing access to remittances and broader development.
Read today’s report on fair and ethical recruitment here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/promoting-fair-ethical-recruitment.