SPEAKERS

Rebekah Smith, Executive Director, Labor Mobility Partnerships (LaMP)

Jason Wendle, Strategy Lead, Labor Mobility Partnerships (LaMP)

PANELISTS

Joe Martinez, Chief Executive Officer, CIERTO

Alex Silberman, General Manager, The Ethical Recruitment Agency (TERA)

Amit Saxena, Director, AMBE International

MODERATOR

Darin Kingston, Organizational Development lead, Labor Mobility Partnerships (LaMP)

Populations in high-income countries are rapidly aging, while at the same time, low-income countries are facing sharp increase in their working age populations. These demographic trends are an ‘unstoppable force’ towards increased labor mobility, pushing against the ‘unmovable object’ of political resistance from citizens in high-income countries to increasing immigrant populations. Temporary mobility programs (TMPs) may be a politically viable solution, as they increase the number of workers without the same political implications as permanent migration.

However, TMPs themselves are also politically unpopular, in large part because they have been plagued by bad outcomes for workers. Many of these bad outcomes have been related to the low quality of the existing ‘mobility industry.’ Emergence of a ‘quality’ mobility industry could improve outcomes in temporary labor mobility by reducing migration costs per worker through greater economies of scale, increasing the accessibility of labor mobility for employers, decreasing the burden on migrant workers, and building trust and capability among actors within labor mobility systems.

In this event, the LaMP team presented the findings of our report on the case for a quality mobility industry, and our efforts in the next stage towards facilitating the emergence of such and industry. This was followed by a panel of quality mobility industry actors and employers, who will discussed how to facilitate the emergence of such ‘quality’ mobility industry.

This event was the fourth in Labor Mobility Partnerships’ (LaMP’s) event series on the case for labor mobility from the perspectives of key actors (receiving countries, sending countries, employers, workers, and ‘mobility industry’). Sign up for our newsletter to stay updated on future events!