EU, ILO and ESCAP launch first ever labour Migration Statistics Guide for the Pacific Region
The guide explains key concepts relevant to international labour migration statistics and makes concrete recommendations on how Pacific Island countries can move towards a harmonized system for collection and analysis of timely, accurate and relevant migration statistics.
At an event at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva on 28 May, 2015, the EU, ILO and ESCAP launched the Guide on International Labour Migration Statistics for Policymakers and Statistics Organizations in the Pacific. The guide explains key concepts relevant to international labour migration statistics and makes concrete recommendations on how Pacific Island countries can move towards a harmonized system for collection and analysis of timely, accurate and relevant migration statistics.
Launching the guide, Ambassador Jacobs said –“As with many aspects of policymaking, reliable and timely statistics are the bedrock of good policy. We need statistics in order to understand the link between the economy, social development and migration, to develop policies and to monitor and tweak these policies”.
A panel of presenters gave three different perspectives on why labour migration statistics were important to their work. In the role of the ‘policymaker’, Mr Vilimone Baledrokadroka (Deputy Secretary for Employment in the Fiji Ministry of Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations) spoke about the aspects of labour migration that are most critical to the industry – maintaining a record of who leaves to work abroad – and how this is relevant to Fiji’s policies on labour migration. From the perspective of the ‘migration specialist’, Mr Nilim Baruah (ILO Regional Labour Migration Specialist) noted some of the work being undertaken on labour migration data collection in the ASEAN region with the support of the ILO. The event closed with the perspective of the ‘statistician’, Ms Jillian Campbell (ESCAP Pacific Statistician) who gave an interesting account of how different data sources, including the census, surveys and administrative data can be combined to show a nuanced picture of migration.
The link to the publication can be found here . For copies, and for additional information, please contact Sophia Kagan at kagan@ilo.org.
Launching the guide, Ambassador Jacobs said –“As with many aspects of policymaking, reliable and timely statistics are the bedrock of good policy. We need statistics in order to understand the link between the economy, social development and migration, to develop policies and to monitor and tweak these policies”.
A panel of presenters gave three different perspectives on why labour migration statistics were important to their work. In the role of the ‘policymaker’, Mr Vilimone Baledrokadroka (Deputy Secretary for Employment in the Fiji Ministry of Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations) spoke about the aspects of labour migration that are most critical to the industry – maintaining a record of who leaves to work abroad – and how this is relevant to Fiji’s policies on labour migration. From the perspective of the ‘migration specialist’, Mr Nilim Baruah (ILO Regional Labour Migration Specialist) noted some of the work being undertaken on labour migration data collection in the ASEAN region with the support of the ILO. The event closed with the perspective of the ‘statistician’, Ms Jillian Campbell (ESCAP Pacific Statistician) who gave an interesting account of how different data sources, including the census, surveys and administrative data can be combined to show a nuanced picture of migration.
The link to the publication can be found here . For copies, and for additional information, please contact Sophia Kagan at kagan@ilo.org.