Multinational Companies Will See More Immigration Enforcement

Multinational corporations can expect to see more workplace immigration enforcement as the world economy continues to falter and countries attempt to throw up barriers to illegal migration, an international immigration expert tells SHRM Online.
Companies, especially those in the European Union (EU), will probably see more stringent enforcement of existing laws that prohibit the employment of illegal migrants, said Georges Lemaitre, an international migration specialist for the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has members from most of the world’s developed nations.
While border enforcement of anti-immigration laws is popular with some countries, workplace enforcement is an accepted policy in the EU, he said. However, because workplace penalties are so low, they don’t always act as a deterrent, he said.
“You have to look at the incentives for the employer to hire (illegal) migrants,” Lemaitre told SHRM Online. “Employers can hire skilled workers at lower costs.”Increasingly stringent enforcement is a product of these times, Lemaitre said. Companies can expect policymakers to become more concerned about the potential adverse effect of immigration on natives’ opportunities, Lemaitre said at a March 19, 2009, OECD presentation on the economy and migration held in Washington, D.C.
For example, Spain’s rising unemployment led to the launch of a voluntary program in late 2008 that pays jobless immigrants who are entitled to unemployment benefits to return to their countries of origin. People who acquiesce cannot return for three years. To date is has not been successful, Lemaitre said. Italy’s government statistics agency recently blamed immigrants for the country’s rising unemployment.OECD released global unemployment figures on March 9, 2009, that emphasize how much the world economy has soured.
The unemployment rate for European OECD members was 8.2 percent in January 2009, 0.1 percentage point higher than the previous month and 0.9 percentage point higher than a year earlier. For the United States, the unemployment rate for February 2009 was 8.1 percent, 0.5 percentage point higher than the previous month and 3.2 percentage points higher than a year earlier. For Japan, the rate was 4.1 percent in January 2009, 0.2 percentage point lower than the previous month but 0.3 percentage point higher than in January 2008.
However, the global recession does present some opportunities for multinational corporations, Lemaitre said. High unemployment rates mean large pools of workers—with a range of job skills—that can be hired for modest wages, he said. These worker pools form because unemployed immigrants will not automatically return to their native countries during a recession, Lemaitre said. Reasons vary. They might not want to return home, can’t finance the move or fear for their safety upon their return, Lemaitre said. “We’re not seeing an increase in return migration; people want to stay put,” he said.
Immigrants who lose their jobs might be forced to take “any” job, even at very low wages, Lemaitre said. Many recently arrived and unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for most benefits. For example, Spain does not allow access to unemployment or social security benefits for certain categories of migrants, and in the United Kingdom eligibility depends to an extent on the country of origin.
“You can hire highly skilled workers at low wages to fill highly skilled or low-skilled jobs,” Lemaitre said, “and generally they will work very hard for you. In a downturn, companies need fewer people, but when the recovery comes there is a large pool of (migrant) workers” that can be tapped.