key: cord-0982489-cmd74uj5
authors: Awad, Ibrahim
title: On occasion of the pandemic: Reflections on Egyptian labour migration
date: 2021-02-14
journal: Int Migr
DOI: 10.1111/imig.12818
sha: 6c95d9d41a87bfede8d8c330ec02efc6dd1a49d4
doc_id: 982489
cord_uid: cmd74uj5

nan

the shrinkage in the GCC demand for Jordanian goods and the effects of the said situation on Jordanian migrant workers in the Gulf. These workers' financial remittances activate the Jordanian economy.

Like for other countries of origin, precise figures about the impact of the pandemic on Egypt are lacking.

Data on returnees are not available. Neither are data on migrant workers remaining in countries of destination, who lost their jobs, or experienced wage cuts or delay in payments. One helpful development was the increase in financial remittances sent by migrant workers to their families in Egypt in the second quarter of 2020, as reported by the Central Bank of Egypt. This increase conforms with theory, which posits that migrant workers increase the sums they remit in times of crisis to help their families weather the hardships they experience. Another possible explanation for the increase is that travel restrictions constrained migrant workers to resort to banking channels and money transfer agencies, which resulted in reduced informal remittances.

Egypt was not alone. Remittances similarly increased to other countries, such as Bangladesh, Kenya and Pakistan. However, in October 2020, the World Bank expected a drop in remittances to Egypt to US$ 24.4 billion in 2020, from US$ 25.5 billion in 2019. For all low-and middle-income countries, the World Bank expected a drop in remittances of 7 per cent in 2020, followed by a further drop of 7.5 per cent in 2021 (World Bank, 2020).

These expectations present an opportunity to discuss the future of Egyptian labour migration so as to ascertain whether it can be counted upon in the future to perform the functions it has carried out in the past. Two factors were identified above that reduced the employment of migrant workers in the Gulf countries in times of the pandemic: public health prevention measures and the drop in oil prices. Certain analysts consider that demand for labour in the Gulf will bounce back to its erstwhile level as soon as the pandemic is over and the oil prices progressively recover in tandem with the resumption of the activities of the global economy. In what follows, these two factors will be discussed along with another three that also contribute to determining demand for labour in countries of the GCC. These are the purposive drive of these countries to adopt high value-added methods of production, policies of labour force nationalisation, and attitudes towards migrants in general, which are at times tainted with xenophobic discourses.

In respect of the first factor, the public health prevention measures cannot be completely discounted in the medium and long terms. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a panel of experts established by the United Nations, in a report published at the end of October 2020, cautioned that in the future 'pandemics are likely to be more frequent, deadly, and will spread more rapidly, unless we stop the widespread destruction of our environment'. This cautioning raises larger questions about the future and shape of globalisation. But, importantly, it portends that nation-states will repeatedly decree close downs to protect their citizens, which should affect foreigners living in their territories and in particular migrant workers and their countries of origin.

The second factor is about the oil prices in their relation to economic activity. In spring 2020, some experts considered that such as economic activity rapidly contracted after the pandemic was declared, it would recover with the same speed when the virus was brought under control. As a result, demand for oil, its prices and revenues, the main determinants of demand for labour, would increase. This was a way too optimistic view. The virulence of the virus subsided during some of the nine months since the pandemic was declared and yet the economic activity did not resume at its previous pace. In fact, the incidence of the virus varied between countries, which logically adopted differential prevention measures thus hampering the functioning of global value chains, as pointed out above. A further cause makes it quite difficult for oil prices to recover to their former high levels:

advance in techniques to extract shale oil has resulted in a glut in the market.

The third factor is the intended adoption of high value-added methods of production that are capital-and knowledge-intensive. It is completely rational that the oil-exporting countries rely on their abundant factor of production, capital, rather than on their scarce one, labour. Capital should allow them to recruit the knowledge that they miss in their labour markets. From the vantage point of countries of origin, however, this means that fewer of

Commentary: Labour migration policy dilemmas in the wake of COVID-19

Migra tion%20%26%20Dev elopm ent_Brief %2033.pdf How to cite this article: Awad I. On occasion of the pandemic: Reflections on Egyptian labour migration