IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ijlaec/v63y2020i4d10.1007_s41027-020-00281-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating Earnings Losses of Migrant Workers Due to COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Manolo I. Abella

    (ILO International Migration Programme
    World Bank-KNOMAD Labour Migration)

  • S. K. Sasikumar

    (V.V. Giri National Labour Institute)

Abstract

While the wide-ranging impact of COVID-19 on incomes and livelihoods of people around the world will take some time to become known and understood, it is already clear that those who are in manual, mostly low-wage, occupations are among the worst-hit workers. This paper uses data from a sample survey of migrant workers to come up with useful parameters for estimating the potential losses from possible retrenchment of migrant workers due to the pandemic. The paper employs a simple estimation model using parameters derived from data collected from a KNOMAD-ILO survey of low-skilled migrant workers in the India–Saudi Arabia migration corridor, conducted during 2016–2017. An important finding is that the aggregate losses that low-skilled Indian workers in Saudi Arabia are likely to incur due to COVID-19-related retrenchment may be as high as 21% of their expected earnings. Adding recruitment costs can push up their losses to 36% of expected or potential earnings, while the aggregate remittances to their families could drop by USD 2 billion.

Suggested Citation

  • Manolo I. Abella & S. K. Sasikumar, 2020. "Estimating Earnings Losses of Migrant Workers Due to COVID-19," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(4), pages 921-939, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ijlaec:v:63:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s41027-020-00281-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s41027-020-00281-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41027-020-00281-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41027-020-00281-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bhupesh Gopal Chintamani & Lalitagauri Kulkarni, 2023. "Determinants and Effects of International Remittances: Evidence from Ratnagiri District of Rural Maharashtra," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 66(2), pages 617-637, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ijlaec:v:63:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s41027-020-00281-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.