very interesting article below

what do you think?

one of the big problems is the environmental implications of all that mobility!!!

cameron

++++

Next step in globalisation: the workers

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/next-step-in-globalisation-the-workers/2006/09/03/1157222010791.html

Matt Wade
September 4, 2006

ANALYSIS

WHAT would happen to the world economy if every worker on earth was able to take a job in whatever country they pleased? When economists at the World Bank set out to answer that question they came up with some startling results.

The free movement of labour across the world would double global incomes, their computer modelling showed.

The bank also examined the effects of what it considered to be a "feasible amount" of labour mobility - a 3 per cent, or 14.2 million, rise in the stock of migrant workers moving from low-income to high-income countries over the next 20 years.

Under that scenario global income would rise by about $US356 billion ($465 billion) a year by 2025 after taking account of price changes and other economic impacts. That's more than three times the amount spent each year on overseas aid and dwarfs the expected benefits from full trade liberalisation, the bank said. Developing countries would benefit the most, but incomes in rich countries would also rise.

The World Bank published these findings and touted the benefits of greater labour market mobility - especially for low-skilled workers from poor countries - in one of its flagship publications for this year, Global Economic Prospects 2006.

It argued the remittances sent home by guest workers - those who work temporarily in rich countries - reduce "the incidence and severity of poverty" and contribute to development in low-income nations. The bank admitted there are some downsides when guest workers send money home. Large remittance flows can push up the value of a developing country's currency and make its exports less competitive. Remittances can also create dependency back at home.

But the benefits are hard to ignore. "Remittances appear to be associated with increased household investments in education, entrepreneurship and health - all of which have a high social return in most circumstances," the bank said.

International remittances received by developing countries have doubled in the past five years to $US167 billion.

A World Bank economist in Sydney, Dr Manjula Luthria, compares the emerging debate about international labour market restrictions to the free-trade debate of several decades ago. "At the moment we have globalisation of everything but labour - it's the elephant in the room," she says.

Developed countries are already under pressure to rethink traditional approaches to migration.

Last month, the World Bank published a report outlining the benefits to small vulnerable Pacific nations if Australia and New Zealand developed guest worker schemes for Pacific Islanders. The Government has not shown any interest in this idea despite support for it from fruit growers and other from agricultural producers who face labour shortages.

At the Pacific Islands Forum late last year the Prime Minister, John Howard, resisted pressure from several Pacific leaders for Australia to introduce a guest worker scheme.

The Treasurer, Peter Costello, reiterated the Government's opposition while visiting the Solomon Islands in July, saying guest worker programs would not produce long-term benefits for Pacific Island nations.

"We invite people to come to Australia who have skills and to become Australians. We are not a guest worker country, [where] we invite people to come in at low wages and then round them up and send them home again," he said.

The political sensitivity of immigration and workers' anxiety over the Government's workplace changes probably means any shift is some way off. But Peter Mares, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology, says the calls for greater mobility will only get louder.

"We're likely to see arguments from countries with a labour surplus that it's in the world's interest to free up the movement of people because that will generate jobs for their people, and they will argue that this will also benefit developed economies," he says.

Mares, a contributor to the World Bank's report on labour mobility in the Pacific, says the ageing of the population in many developed countries could push them to change their approach to migration. "We may eventually have a range of service industries that struggle to get enough workers," he said. "An obvious one is aged care."