Expat workers

The stream of migrant workers flowing to richer economies threatens to impoverish the developing economies they come from – Bangladeshi construction workers in South-East Asia, Indian entrepreneurs in African countries. This exodus of talent has raised serious concerns.

There is, however, another dimension to this. English is a necessary skill for many of these workers: for example, Malaysia in 2003 made basic proficiency in English a requirement for all foreign employees, just as Bangladesh signed an agreement to send 200,000 workers to Malaysia.

Mexicans working in the USA are estimated to send back 18 billion dollars a year but remittances are known to be drastically underestimated by official statistics.. In many countries, remittances from expat workers make a significant contribution to the national economy.

English is widely regarded as a gateway to wealth for national economies, organisations, and individuals. If that is correct, the distribution of poverty in future will be closely linked to the distributions of English.

Saudi Arabia, nurses and doctors from Nepal, indicate that the actual flow may be 10 times or more than that published.

In many countries, such as sub-Saharan African countries, there may be no official statistics actually collected. In other words, remittance economies are probably of far greater importance in development than recognised in statistics.

Migrant workers not only remit money, but also often acquire – or maintain during periods of employment difficulty in their home country – skills and knowledge which they may later repatriate if the economic situation ‘back home’ improves.