Labour migration in Southeast Asia: migration policies, labour exploitation and regulation

Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are Southeast Asia’s economic development success stories and have been shifting towards an intra-regional bias on trade and migration matters. All three countries are heavily dependent on foreign workers and have government-mediated migration policies for their continued economic growth and prosperity. Managing migration is a major problem facing these countries, and the guest worker programme is increasingly seen as the optimal solution to fill labour market gaps. Migration policies often provide incentives for skilled workers, boost circular migration flows among low-skilled guest workers and include stringent border-control regimes to exclude unauthorised migration. The guest worker programme is also reliant on networks and intermediaries, and brokerage fees contribute to less-skilled migrant workers’ marginalisation and exploitation. Changes in global migration governance, the inclusion of migrant labour exploitation under the banner of trafficking and the threat of economic sanctions are increasingly resulting in interstate cooperation and more humane border regimes.