Our key takeaway: There is an oversupply of workers in certain countries (Nepal, Honduras, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Mexico etc.) who seek employment in other countries. This imbalance of power enables recruiters to ask these workers to pay excessive recruitment fees - far beyond the cost of recruitment and travel. Once they start working, these migrant workers are vulnerable: they don’t have leverage, they are in low wage jobs, they do not have a voice. Therefore, remedy, grievance mechanisms and the employer pays principle are the name of the game. Responsible recruitment helps companies reduce the vulnerability of migrant workers, but also helps change a deeply-embedded culture of recruitment fees payment, spark productivity gains, and enhance greater development gains - by enabling workers to send more money home. With one worker in 20 around the world being a migrant worker (169 million migrant workers in total), the consequences of responsible recruitment would not be inconsequential.
The Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) published ‘Realising Rights and Maximising Benefits, Improving Development Outcomes Through the Responsible Recruitment of Migrant Workers’ (May 2022). This report provides recommendations for governments, business, and the recruitment industry “on how to improve recruitment practices that would safeguard the rights of migrant workers whilst maximising the development potential of their work abroad.” In parallel, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) published earlier this year a new set of ‘Migrant Worker Guidelines For Employers’ (January 2022) which offer “practical guidance for business enterprises on how to recruit and employ international migrant workers ethically and responsibly.”
- The vulnerability of migrant workers and the impacts of recruitment fees: The IHRB report describes how workers without local opportunities for employment and who lack information about jobs abroad become dependent on “a range of licensed and unlicensed recruitment agents and other intermediaries,” which often fail “to align with international standards” and have business models “based on exploitation of workers.” The oversupply of local agencies and workers in countries of origin such as Nepal, Honduras, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Mexico allows recruiters abroad to demand payment of recruitment fees that “often go far beyond the genuine costs of recruitment and deployment” and “may total the equivalent of up to 24 months salary.” Once in the receiving countries, migrant workers are vulnerable to denial of rights because they lack leverage, since they often work “low wage jobs, without effective trade unions and other worker-support networks.” Women are especially vulnerable to exploitation.
- Remedy and mitigation initiatives: Due to these conditions, the IHRB report finds that “migrant workers may lack access to effective grievance mechanisms to address abuses from recruitment” or may lack access to mechanisms that are effective in securing remedy through the reimbursement of fees. Lack of remedy is being addressed by industry initiatives such as the Employer Pays Principle that commits companies to assume the costs of recruitment and the Standards for Repayment, developed by the consultancy Impactt “based on their experience of helping organise repayment schemes to workers for their employment in the Gulf and SE Asia.” The Leadership Group for Responsible Recruitment has also been established to “strengthen joint leverage in advocating for policies and practices that would better ensure protection of migrant workers’ rights.” IHRB recommends that companies (i) “commit to the Employer Pays Principle and ensure that workers in their direct operations and extended supply chains are not charged fees”; (ii) “maintain effective grievance mechanisms through which workers can seek redress for issues encountered during recruitment”; and (iii) “use their leverage to support and promote a global prohibition on recruitment fees and costs charged to workers.”
- Migrant Workers Guidelines for Employers: As a means of materialising these commitments, the IOM’s recently released Migrant Workers Guidelines provide specific guidance for companies and employers in the stage of “recruitment and deployment” of migrant workers. They provide guidance for the stages of employment and of return or onwards migration, which make up the labour migration process. The Guidelines also provide companies with information on the elements needed to establish a “Labour Migration Management System”, which include a policy commitment, a human rights due diligence system, a remediation system and engagement with migrant workers; and provide a set of supporting tools that can be “can be integrated in existing company policies, procedures and practices.” The tools include: a summary of common challenges experienced by migrant workers; checklists for provisions to include on agreements with labour recruiters and on employment contracts; a checklist on the requirements for decent accommodation and living conditions; and a guidance note on recruitment fees, how to identify them and how to determine a transparent and sustainable price for recruitment with labour recruiters.
