The indicator is meant to show the levels of costs that are still incurred by migrant workers in order to secure a job abroad, relative to the income they earn from working abroad.

The high economic and social costs incurred by migrants are increasingly recognized as serious impediments to realizing sustainable development outcomes from international migration. A critical role of migration policies is reducing the financial costs of recruitment incurred by migrant workers seeking jobs abroad. Recruitment costs paid by migrant workers to recruitment agents, on top of the fees paid by the employers, are a major drain on poor migrants’ incomes and remittances. They divert the money sent by migrants from the family to illicit recruitment agents and money lenders. Almost 10 million people use regular channels to migrate in search of employment every year. A large number of them pay illegal recruitment fees to the recruitment agents.

Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)

Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)

Biennial

Percentage (%)

High costs that migrants pay for their jobs, including recruitment fees, significantly increase risk of forced labour, debt bondage, and human trafficking, especially for low-skilled workers. Too often, migrant workers are subject to abusive practices in the workplace and pay high fees that can deplete their savings and make them more vulnerable during the recruitment and placement processes. The international community, such as through the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (4A) of the Third UN International Conference on Financing for Development affirmed the imperative to lower the cost of recruitment for migrant workers.

Target population (international migrant, international migrant workers): the term ‘international migrant worker’ is to be understood to mean someone who leaves his/her country of usual residence with the documented intention to work in another country, as a wage/salary earner.  Thus, the term’s concept does not include those who leave their area of usual residence to work in another area in the same country, nor those who can commute for work across an international border, on a daily or weekly basis without changing the country of usual residence.  These draft Guidelines exclude consideration of other migrant workers whose usual residence may be hard to confirm, such as seafarers who work on a vessel registered to a country different from their country of origin. The concept should cover all international migrant workers who have changed their country of usual residence with the documented intention to work in another country, whether they are engaged through formal or through ‘informal’ recruitment processes.

 Reference period: the statistics/estimates on costs and earnings used to calculate 10.7.1 should refer to the first job obtained in the country of destination and the first year of employment abroad of the international migrant worker.

 Costs: Recruitment costs refer to any fees or costs incurred in the recruitment process in order for workers to secure employment or placement, regardless of the manner, timing or location of their imposition or collection. These are equal to the total amount that migrant workers and/or their families paid to find, qualify for, and secure a concrete job offer from a foreign employer and to reach the place of employment for the first job abroad. Recommended costs items are indicated in Paragraphs 22 to 24 of the draft Guidelines on statistics for SDG indicator 10.7.1.

 Earnings: statistics on earnings of migrant workers abroad should cover the actual income received for the last month in the first job in the destination country, including bonuses and other earnings (e.g. for over-time work). Adjustments should be made for any deductions for destination country taxes and social security contributions, as well as for any deductions in wages made to recover any recruitment costs initially paid by the employer.

is by sex, age, income, place of residence, geographic location.

RCI = f (C_K / E_k)

Where:

RCI is the Proportion of recruitment costs in the monthly employment earnings.

f may take on various functions’ forms, such as: mean, median and 4th quintile.

C_K is the recruitment costs paid by individual migrant worker k;

E_k is the monthly earnings of the same migrant worker k.

This indicator is intended to be used by the Statistical Institute of Belize so that they can develop policies that eliminate illegal recruitment fees, monitor recruitment agencies and combat unscrupulous recruiters implemented in constructive collaboration between sending and receiving countries. Policymakers should endeavour to eliminate illegal recruitment fees which would require effective regulation and monitoring of recruitment agencies and combating unscrupulous recruiters implemented in constructive collaboration between the sending and the receiving countries

The proposed Guidelines have recommended using one month of earnings as the denominator, and to express the indicator as the proportion of monthly earnings paid by the migrant worker to obtain the job abroad. The Guidelines recommend using earnings of the last month of the first job abroad. However monthly earnings of migrant workers may vary considerably for each month worked, particularly if migrant workers often change their job during their first 12 months abroad.

Statistics on SDG indicator 10.7.1 should be collected primarily by using existing data collection systems such as household-based surveys.  This will ensure coherence with existing national sources, methodologies and sampling frames, including types of interviews, field organization, etc.

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.