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Price gouging by illegal manpower brokers, mainly based in Malaysia, has increased immigration costs for Bangladeshi workers seeking employment in Libya. Brokers will purchase large quantities of Libyan work visas then sell them at inflated rates to workers and employment recruiters. Normally, workers’ migration costs average 100,000 to 120,000 Bangladeshi Taka (1,455 -1,746 USD). However, some workers complain of being charged twice that amount.

Recruiting agencies believe that if they could go directly to the government, visa costs would decline. Libya’s Expatriates’ Welfare and Oversees Employment Minister said workers’ failure to protest costs was an issue, but claimed no knowledge of increased costs. He stated he would monitor the situation for the next two months.

The Daily Star reports that these unregulated broker practices coupled with the economy’s decline has resulted in many foreign governments limiting Bangladeshi workers’ ability to obtain work. The first five months of 2008 saw 378,994 Bangladeshis seek employment overseas, while only 212,332 have done so this year.

Each day about 300 Bangladeshi workers leave for Libya, which recently began building infrastructure projects worth over $100 billion. Libya estimates the projects will employ around 200,000 workers in two years. Libya’s government has begun hiring Bangladeshi workers, and last December recruited 20,000 Bangladeshi workers.

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Current global migration patterns indicate that, due to rising unemployment rates and contracting economies in developed countries, fewer workers are migrating from poor to wealthier nations, and the flow of migrant workers returning to their home countries is increasing. As reported in The Wall Street Journal,  this is potentially the biggest reversal in migration flows since the Great Depression.

Statistics illustrating the reversal include:

• Emigration from Mexico to the U.S. dropped 13% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the first quarter of 2008. In the same period, more people returned to Mexico than left Mexico for the U.S., about 139,000 and 137,000, respectively.
• In 2009, a projected 60,000 or more Indonesia citizens will return home from Malaysia, South Korea and other wealthy neighboring nations, as immigrant workers lose their jobs.
• Tens of thousands of Indians are returning from Dubai as jobs there dwindle and work permits expire.
• In the United Kingdom, the number of registered workers coming from new European Union member nations like Poland and the Czech Republic dropped 55% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

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The Telegraph (UK) reports that The Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Bill, expected to take effect in April 2009, will levy an “immigration tax” of approximately US$30 upon entry into the UK on a visa, to go into a “transitional fund” to help deal with the impact of immigration. The bill also will introduce the concept of “probationary citizens” for migrants who want to settle in the UK: after five years’ residency, an applicant enters a probationary period, the length of which will depend on contributions the applicant has made to society, such as volunteer or community work.

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