Stranded with no income no work the pandemic or shes millions of Migrant Workers out of a job and that families back home go hungry so who should look after the. Crisis change the way wealthy countries use foreign labor this is inside story. Hello welcome to the program. Farm workers are often the backbone of many societies they are doctors nurses shop assistants and manages all this take low skilled work the citizens of wealthy nations wont do they have families back home depending on the money they send but millions of Migrant Workers have seen their livelihoods evaporate as the corona virus spreads economies all over the world have been hit by the effects of lockdowns salaries are being cut or staff fired as business dries up the World Bank Says global remittances will drop by 20 percent this year the sharpest fall in recent history Migrant Workers sent home 554000000000 dollars last year a wreck or remittances overtalk Foreign Direct Investment as the biggest source of money flowing into low and middle Income Countries most came from the United States and the gulf much of it was sent to families in india china mexico and the philippines. But the World Bank Says europe and central asia will be most affected by the drop in remittances are expected to fall by 28 percent this year and africa will lose about 23 percent with somalia and south sudan likely hit the hardest. Lets introduce our panel in gurgaon in india we have our own kumar a professor at the institute of social sciences in new delhi in london we have full scenario in a sami head of labor rights at the business and Human Rights Resource Center and in beirut in lebanon has an eunice a Business Management analyst thank you all for joining us are let me begin with you what will be the effect on the economies of countries like India Pakistan the ball nepal bangladesh egypt in the philippines if and when these remittances start drying up. So you know these people come from rather poor families will migrated because that incomes in india low in india we have a very large unorganized sector which employs 94 percent of the workforce so the chances of getting a good income from the organized sector very few and thats why people migrate in large numbers to the vest and to other countries also the employment of what we do have been drying up because the Indian Economy would be slowing down in the last 3 years was demoted ideation so now when these people have lost just to walk in the best asia you know because of the lockdown or what has happened is that the Global Economy has gone into a depression petrol prices have fallen crude oil prices are falling so therefore these countries are i think are not able to afford having these people so the remittances to india would drop roughly 8000000 indians that theyre invest in asia and a large number of them have applied to the Indian Government to return because they had no work but a month month and a half so when the remittances dry up and the families here in india who are dependent on these i meet and said they would be in trouble when these people return as its already started in the lights are bringing them back and there are navy ships also which are bringing them back when that happens then these people come back and they would not have well because work in india is also dried up in india according to a recent report from the center for monitoring Indian Economy roughly more than 140000000 people have lost employment in the last few months and you know the number is likely to be larger because that doesnt capture the knowledge number of people migrating from cities to lady on foot or otherwise so in other words getting a job for these people would be very difficult in india and therefore thered be a lot of psychological problems they would have returned without money without any earning without being able to support the family and not able to find god both in economic terms. I dont let you have i think thered be a crisis. I dont see how reliant on these developing world economies on remittances from from the gulf from the un from the us you know these are these economies like our own set of a hugely dependent on remittances but we also need to focus on on what the immediate concerns are for these workers themselves you know this pandemic really has exposed the structural inequalities that face Migrant Workers all over the world whether theyre in the Construction Industry working on Construction Projects like the world cup stadiums and in qatar or whether theyre apparel industry workers working in factories in places like India Bangladesh and cambodia many of these workers have already been the most vulnerable workers in the world and were always saying really now is a pos thing of the financial burden on to these workers so many of these workers they havent seen their wages for march april and theyre facing some of the worst kinds of destitution possible and whats very concerning is that so many of these industries a lot of the work is a women that far away from their homes theyre left with no fears no access to food and of course crucially theyre then in Living Conditions which are making them extremely vulnerable to this to this virus and were seeing that in places like qatar and the u. A. E. Where these work is ready to leave an incredibly cramped and unsanitary conditions these conditions preceded the onset of this pandemic 8 to 10 People Living in very cramped conditions sharing kitchens sharing bathrooms you know the lack of access to food and wages is one thing but theyre also now extremely worried and distressed at the prospect of of contract ing the coronavirus and not knowing what will happen to them so there is a huge number of elements to this end and of course crucially we need to consider whos responsible for these workers because again we see. The back is being passed so theyre defending country certain countries in south asia where a lot of the workers in the gulf are from and they own it has been put on their states to bring these records back home so we really say that theyre theyre falling through the cracks and its important to remember that they fell through the cracks before this pandemic kept and this is just really exacerbated the conditions for these records i promise you we will talk about those many of those issues that we raise the program goes on. In lebanon you or you have a banking crisis at the moment as well as you can even get dollars out of the bank there how reliant is lebanons economy on foreign remittances actually thankful hospital needed all of that and only has all of. Their support. Their support and that evidence is there for us 11 commission is only 4500000 living. Alone who have maybe more dont 1000000 used indeed in the east in australia in the u. S. And many other places with the least starting october 7th Economic Conditions worsen and this is dented now even before the 1st case on the 24 case of 120 between october and if you value or. Reduce the developers test has become at its lowest level since made it 11 or the people dont have access to their money to banks to do to have a 1000000. 00 in the bank account you have access to more than 12000. 00 the market you have in banking it says you have equality as well as well we havent with was this double just the month in 75. 00 a month not much is it was under 2 years of 11 mused civil war. 2 and has. Mission in lebanon is going to consist of the lebanese in the dark and sad especially dont kill enemies were and why kill our white collar if i may. This description of a working man jesus is most needy sot of the income generated by telephone used is positive hardly any special those are highly needed it is usually used it negative better consensus which we are witnessing with the spread of god 90 and lot of which we havent witnessed and if all works in one month a fresh. 11 was. Unprecedented. Around the help us understand when the money is sent back to a country like india how does that money those remittances work their way through the economy. You know let me be very clear the Indian Economy roughly 2 trillion dollars and what we were getting was roughly about 50000000000. 00 so as far as the total economy is concerned its not very large but in terms of balance of payment of course it relies on because india has largely a trade deficit and therefore to cover that we depend on capital flows coming from abroad so one of the important capra flows is this so that helps to shore up our balance of payment thats the 1st thing that is there for the Macro Economy part the 2nd thing is that you know there are certain pockets life to catalyze a state from bad roughly 1500000 people have gone to west isha and thats a substantial proportion of the population similarly from the north in the north the punjab state you know from there a large number of people have gone so in those places its a very significant role so therefore in those states then the rules stop and the families that that theyre the businesses that they run they would suffer from the problem another problem that comes up in the context of pandemic is that theres a lockdown and the Indian Economy is tanking at this point of time not more than 25 percent of the output of the Indian Economy stays in place which means that all of the 25 percent thats working the amount of them intense is a very High Percentage you know if the remittances a country new to come in that would have helped india now as you also know export and import globally have come down very dramatically even china which recovered their exports and imports of come down dramatically and therefore you know maybe the balance of payments problem would be a bit less that Commodity Prices falling but you know as far as income generation in the economy is concerned this limit and so theyve been very important of the lot of you know g. D. P. That is being a generated the moment so all the stories you know there are things that happening earlier but i like that in the context of the Current Situation where the lock down in india the long. Down there in the world exported imports have come down dramatically balance of payment problems are going to continue and Commodity Prices are going to continue to fall so in that context i think you know the decline in the image instead would be very very important especially for years like job and similarly you know for the other countries of south issue from that you know lies proportion of the corporation that gone compared to india they also would have Significant Impact on the balance of payment so i think we need to look at it from the back group was as good as on the prospect of those dates from various people have gone out in large numbers of case so well see alpha understand the families at the other end from the from the Migrant Worker what are they reliant on not money for what are they using it on and how how important is it if its not too obvious a question to that daily lives. As our own was saying people all over the world have been impacted regardless of those families being impacted with remittances not coming through or those who have lost work locally but i think the real question is whats the real cost of their emissions says for those who are still continuing to work under the pandemic and were really getting a sense that families are really concerned at this point particularly for the welfare of their family members who are far away who may not even at this point have enough money to be able to pay for a phone credit to keep in touch with their families so i think you know really the concern is for the wellbeing of the welfare of a family members especially in a situation where communication is now impacted on an unprecedented level if you cant tell your family back home if you cant speak to your children back home and tell them how youre going i think that the concerns around getting those remittances when theres already such a large impact on the economy become it becomes secondary and i think this is where we really need to be focusing on what happens to. Those people who west who economies like india are so reliant on these remittances what are these states doing for those people are they putting pressure on the host governments to ensure that not only these people are getting paid the wages to ensure that those remittances are happening but also are they ensuring that those people have access to personal protective equipment in there were if there is a wide outbreak of coronavirus among these populations its going to be very hard to stem that and weve seen that in the last couple of weeks happened in singapore where you know they largely had it under control then from Migrant Workers who were working in the Construction Industry continuing to work they not only have been unable to send remittances back home but then are facing really high levels of this virus and that of course is incredibly consenting for their families back home and house and when when that money sent back to the lebanon and it is possible it is possible to get it out of the bank one of the families on the receiving end spending it all what is that money used for in the main. You know if you guessed though us talking about the negative repercussions on the balance. When it comes to let alone this can be even more it might actually. Be cultural and. Thats why import most of our agricultural and thus the products on it will hence was dollars want to make this kind of. What most offset this is this is a huge deficit and the balance of payment was a few 1000000000. 00 which used to be sent by the let me order now we dont have that lot of access to. And what it meant by the government that is the. 1000. 00 sent to the 1511. 00 ounce and now with the bone wish not to let me ask every 1000. 00 with 1500. 00 or so people are running off east dollars. And was exchanging words with many of their lives that saw in our 450000 pounds maybe get 100 dollars let people get that well so this is. A very negative month that is devoted to you 8 elevenths increasing for example at. The world bank and political fold up in the hills 101824000 its living a lot of poverty line which is full of dollars to date now we have 7 more than 75000 families living beyond this spot. And one of them and half of the lebanese population is poor because. It wants to want to start businesses and its this is this and then it can have access to their money. At an later in their Bank Accounts and. Then it is. Should have been has a situation thats why i dont have this very night it must. And people are always and one of the situation is worse we only have. Annual government but now it seems that there are stuck wasnt morses with this result when we saw many many reasons. On our own sources even then were having. This region. And this route. But. Many that only hes relying on lease and it is a source of nifty as he may sort of ease it needs for a bit. Of the other relativity in the. Illustration and once one hour in the room the role of a Foreign Worker a Migrant Worker in say a gulf country or even in the us is often portrayed as one who takes from that country and sends their money to their home country but how important are they to the mechanism the mechanics of the host country that theyre in how do they make how important are they to the working of the economy. So you know there are different kinds of migration from india the skilled workers who go abroad they had a very samey skilled and unskilled workers the kind of jobs that say maybe the people invest ish i dont want to do like you know the menial job the construction jobs etc so theyre very important because they have a conveyed no villages in fact as would be pointed out often the videos are not made to the end and now many of the workers are complaining that they havent received a just for many months and therefore that many less and then dont have the money to even return in the us for instance you know that all these kind of different kind of well because a lot of indians in the soft bed in dusty etc theyre not going to be affected its actually the lowest current people who are being affected because you know the businesses completely shut down off says upside down but those who can vote from home like in softened just yet said theyre not getting affected so its the what has sections of the migrants who are being affected many adversely and they just theyre kind of wandering sections in india also are getting affected many adversely so this is actually creating a problem for the wealthy families in india as i said you know about 200000000 people have lost theyre not able to go to work and therefore theyre scared below the poverty line and when these people who are looking in the us are in their state and theyve us sending money back to them and then the poverty aggravates now i said is that what being done and how important are these people do they come to me ill say usa they did that kind of luck that you know that they said what a local population wasnt willing to do so i think thats fair it hurts the economy of the country is also bad these migrants have gone because now if these people start returning then to ramp up the economy again would be very difficult and the same thing is happening in india where a large number of Small Business that itself boarding up that these put up people used to work runs deep goes down then ramping up the economy very difficult so theyve been. Or in the u. S. You know audited of and these people come back and the workers are not available through an amp of production then recovery would be very still you know people hoping that theyll be of the ship recovery but instead it is going to be a u. Shaped recovery as it is its a depression investment is going down globally in India Investment us all and as you go you know consumption has gone down dramatically and as a result you know what you need a governor would exceed to 5 years possibly it would be the case in the u. S. And other countries as well so you know the rule of these people is they important in the recovery ok and full so you touched earlier on on the very difficult Living Conditions of particularly laborous when they live in countries hearing cats are in the emirates in saudi arabia and kuwait if there are an appreciation in these countries the of the contribution that those labors make to the local economies because it seems very easily kicked out when things get tough yeah unfortunately all were really saying is that is an exacerbation of a situation where i can work as a trade to a 2nd class citizens and and this situation for workers is structural its embedded into label systems its embedded into labor law and were just saying at this spot lighted so regardless of the fact that these are the people that that cape homes claim that keep children fed that keep buildings going up that appreciation isnt translated into strong wages into a safety net the records whether thats the wages ofa sick pay its not translated into safety for whether or not they can stay with how easily they can read the round and and really the difficulties facing records whether theyre in the Construction Industry or in apparel or in agriculture is is this carroty that has already been embedded into their lives they never and wages that was sufficient to cover their genuinely to cover their cost of living i mean we need to understand that even when were talking about remittances the the number. The amount of of money that sent back home worker is incredibly small in any global scale and so these workers have no ability to build any kind of buffa and while we might be trying at this stage to push pull stronger protections for work is instead what were seeing is a real rolling back of these protection for workers and in many different sect is this corona virus pandemic is being used as a way to further or the rights of these workers whether its making their Living Conditions even worse pushing down wages as weve already seen workers havent been paid wages for 2 months now and were now seeing that those wages are even being cut or attempted to be subsidized with the provision of fruit and this simply isnt good enough and its quite a concerning trend in response to this pandemic which when not saying the spotlight on on Migrant Workers rights translating into stronger protections for them were seeing a west sending effect our own if gulf countries particularly did need to go for stability to market workers such as permanent residency for example all the more likely to want to stay there more but if they can buy partment if they can invest in businesses is there a way that they could encourage Foreign Workers to invest more that. Well you know these workers have gone there with a specific goal of sending money back home because you know that their families. They need the money to actually shored up the things so vile the rich people who migrate you know they would be investing in real estate and what i dont see these poor people you know investing much in the gulf countries you know. Elsewhere where they migrate so you know i think what needs to be done is a dignity as they rightly bring pointed out you know the dignity of labor if that is assured maybe they feel more involved in those countries but given the kind of conditions in which they live theres a lot of in the nation and its a very mechanical kind of a relationship that they know that theyre being exploited they know that they want to get that money so they can send it back home but i dont think unless the situation changes and i was being very correctly pointed out and tired drove now the labor laws are being given a go by you know in india also many states like what theyre predation saw you know that they have you know suspended various labor laws this is happening all over the world and once that happens i think the condition of labor would deteriorate not only in india but also i think investigation and other countries you know arent so this is what the reserve army of labor which keeps the condition of labor down you know and this is all i mean of labor nobody cares about even in india the unorganized sector something thats not on the anvil of policy making and thats a large number of another nice Sector Workers a migrating from cities theyre walking a 1000 kilometers the children in hand with a little bit of luggage and the same kind of thing i suspect is going on in rest issue where these people are not on the radar of any policymaker its only that now that we are in trouble we need to get rid of them unfortunately out of time but thanks to all of our guests to our own to say now on the saw me to happen eunice and thank you to the watch you can see the problem again any. By visiting our website aljazeera dot com for further discussion go to our Facebook Page facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter we are a. J. Inside story and i am just sierra good for me but its me and the entire team here in doha by for. Every generation has a higher purpose. Ours these days. Talked to al jazeera we asked what were your thoughts were when you saw that document for the 1st story we listen to after the war saying youll youll be in to go build you know to stage a view that we will not be with you we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on aljazeera. Aljazeera. Where every. Day its been 7 pm in the United Kingdom a Prime MinisterAbbas Johnson is about to address the nation is expected to lay out stages for lifting the countrys coronavirus lockdown lets listen in and you have shown the good sense to support those rules overwhelmingly you put up with all the hardships of that program of social distancing because you understand that as things stand and it is the experience of every other country has shown its the only way to defeat the coronavirus