Foreign Labor in Asia : Issues & Challenges

While it has been strongly believed that labour migration is closely associated with a rapid transformation of many industrialised nations of the globe, the phenomenon is now increasingly emerging in other parts of the world, notably in newly industrialised countries.

Prior to the 1950s, foreign labourers were found to be concentrated mostly in Western Europe and the United States.

However, after the 1950s and 1960s, the transmigration of labourers started occurring in the Asia (notably Middle East) and after 1970s and 1980s in the Asia Pacific.

Among the Asian countries, the importation of foreign labourers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore has been a necessity when these countries, at different stages of their economic developments, were facing a chronic shortage of labourers.

This book presents a study of foreign labour policy of the four selected Asian territories: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore.