In The News

Caixin: Could the Chinese Mainland Be the Next Hong Kong for Filipino Maids?

Luo Ruiyao, Li Rongde and Zhang Congzhi August 11, 2017
The Philippine Statistics Authority reports that about 2.4 million women left the nation to work as domestic help in Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and elsewhere. China may be the next stop for Filipina staff who provide elder and child care, as officials from the Philippines report negotiations are underway to organize work programs in five Chinese cities. “If it happens, it would mark a huge change in...

Roads & Kingdoms: Shifting Current

Matthew Bremner August 8, 2017
The number of active Scottish fishermen has halved in the past half century, and the industry blames the European Union and ideals of free movement of labor and capital. Accordingly, “while 60 percent of Scotland’s population voted ‘Remain’ in last year’s Brexit referendum, more than 90 percent of its fishermen did the opposite,” reports Matthew Bremner. The EU treats the North Sea, like all...

Politico: Trump Administration to Allow for 15,000 More Foreign Workers

Louis Nelson July 21, 2017
The US departments of Homeland Security and Labor have announced that they will issue up to 15,000 additional H-2B visas for temporary, non-agricultural workers this year. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly explained the decision to increase the Congressionally-approved cap of 66,000 H-2B visas per year as a supply-and-demand problem: “there are not enough qualified and willing US workers...

Business Review Europe: Starbucks to Hire 2,500 Refugees Across Europe by 2022

Nell Walker June 30, 2017
Refugees, by the UN definition, are forced to leave their homes due to persecution, war or violence, and they try to start new lives in foreign lands. The world has 21 million refugees, and Starbucks is pitching in to contribute stability to their lives and their new communities by hiring 10,000 globally, including 2,500 in Europe, over the next five years. “The plan going into motion coincides...

Council on Foreign Relations: US Temporary Foreign Worker Programs

Claire Felter June 20, 2017
Each year, the United States allows temporary workers to enter the country to work for seasonal agriculture, tourism and other industries and skilled labor, too: “more than one million visas were granted in 2014, up from some four hundred thousand in 1994,” reports Claire Felter for the Council on Foreign Relations. Opponents to such programs worry about visa tracking, illegal immigration,...

The Atlantic: My Family’s Slave

Alex Tizon May 23, 2017
Cultural traditions in one society can be crimes in another. Children raised with such traditions confront a dilemma as acceptance slowly transforms into questions and shame. Author Alex Tizon, now deceased, profiles a woman who had served his family without pay for more than 50 years. The uneducated worker was taken from the fields at age 12 and eventually given to Tizon’s mother by his...

Spiegel Online: Eight Myths of Migration

Hein de Haas March 23, 2017
Migration continues to top political agendas, but a failure to understand the phenomenon will cause new problems. Fear of an “uncontrollable influx…. has fueled the rise of extreme nationalist parties,” explains Hein de Haas for Spiegel Online. The professor of sociology refutes myths of migration. Migration is circulatory; closed borders do not automatically lead to less migration and actually...