The International Organization for Migration (IOM) released its report A Decade of Responsible Recruitment (April 2026). The report draws on 30+ independent evaluations, 138 IOM staff consultations across 77 IOM offices, and stakeholder engagement with businesses, governments, trade unions, civil society and migrant worker organisations to assess progress in responsible recruitment and migrant worker protection over the past 10 years.
Human Level’s Take:
- After a decade of responsible recruitment efforts, the IOM finds that progress has been uneven and not yet fully reflected in the lived experiences of many migrant workers. While advances have been made in policy development, standards and corporate commitments, the findings indicate that working and recruitment conditions for migrant workers have remained largely unchanged in many contexts.
- Taking stock of implementation across regions and sectors, the report highlights a central paradox: responsible recruitment has generated significant normative clarity and institutional momentum, yet system-wide change has not kept pace with the scale and complexity of the challenge. In other words, frameworks and commitments have expanded faster than consistent implementation on the ground.
- The findings suggest that the strongest progress has come where responsible recruitment has been embedded into broader labour migration systems and supply chain practices. Other success factors: sustained engagement by companies rather than one-off trainings, and worker-facing systems like helplines and resource centres. At the same time, uneven implementation, fragmented oversight and inconsistent enforcement continue to limit the scale, consistency, and long-term sustainability of progress across migration corridors. Meanwhile, overreliance on audits and certifications has failed to address system-wide challenges, while many grievance mechanisms have not worked in practice.
- So what appears to make the difference? A key step: aligning incentives, governance structures, and worker-centred implementation, rather than relying on policy commitments, alone. Progress appears strongest where responsible recruitment is integrated into operational decision-making and accountability systems, and where enforcement underpins guidance, training and certifications.
- The report also identifies collective action as a key condition for advancing responsible recruitment. This includes stronger collaboration between governments, businesses, recruiters, trade unions, civil society organisations and worker representatives, alongside approaches that strengthen worker voice and improve access to remedy throughout recruitment processes.
Some key takeaways:
- Strong progress where responsible recruitment has been well-embedded into broader systems and practices: The report finds that progress has been strongest where responsible recruitment efforts have moved beyond voluntary commitments and become embedded into broader systems and practices across supply chains. It highlights positive developments in areas such as the growing adoption of the Employer Pays Principle (where the employer pays all recruitment fees), increased cross-sector collaboration between governments, businesses, trade unions and civil society, and stronger integration of migrant worker protections into corporate due diligence and recruitment processes. The report also points to improvements in awareness, capacity-building, and the development of practical tools and standards that have helped advance more consistent approaches to ethical recruitment across sectors and regions. For example, when employers took on sustained engagement rather than one-off training sessions, there was increased improvement in recruitment, contract transparency and remediation. In addition, worker-facing systems (such as resource centres, helplines and community outreach) were effective to protect workers, improve access to remedy and provide deeper operational insights to companies compared to audits and certifications.
- Persistent challenges: The report finds that progress has been more limited where responsible recruitment efforts remain fragmented, voluntary or disconnected from broader labour migration systems and commercial practices. The report also points to inconsistent enforcement of standards across migration corridors and sectors, alongside ongoing barriers to remedy and limited worker voice and representation in recruitment processes. In many cases, implementation remains uneven across employers and recruiters — especially when approaches designed for structured systems were not tailored for regions with high rates of informal work — while short-term project approaches and limited coordination between governments, businesses and other stakeholders have constrained the long-term sustainability of progress. In addition, approaches like certification and audits, which focus largely on recruiter performance, did not meaningfully tackle the system-wide changes needed across migration corridors. And grievance mechanisms that existed on paper but didn’t work in practice remained a barrier to remediating recruitment costs.
- What’s needed now: The report identifies five overarching lessons that point to the need for more coordinated and systemic action on responsible recruitment. First, structural incentives, not technical tools alone, shape recruitment behaviour. Second, enforcement and market transformation need to underpin guidance, training and certification. Third, certification alone is insufficient to drive demand for responsible recruitment. Fourth, sustainable progress depends on coordinated government action across origin and destination countries. Fifth, stronger accountability is needed to demonstrate measurable improvements in migrant workers’ lives. Moving forward, priorities include embedding responsible recruitment into broader labour migration governance rather than treating it as a stand-alone initiative, as well as moving beyond fragmented initiatives toward more aligned and collaborative approaches across labour migration systems. There is also a need for stronger collaboration between governments, businesses, recruiters, trade unions, civil society organisations and worker representatives, as well as more worker-centred approaches that strengthen access to remedy and worker voice. The report suggests that long-term investment in implementation and capacity-building will be necessary to scale more sustainable and consistent practices across migration corridors and supply chains. Finally, new approaches will be needed to tackle informal labour recruitment, which has a high risk of poor recruitment practices.
