Labor Contractors: A Conceptual Overview

Abstract

"The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of labor brokering or contracting that helps to explain why employers turn to foreign workers to fill certain vacant jobs, and how the presence of foreign workers brought to a country by labor contractors can affect the size and duration of migration flows. The major conclusion is that East Asian policies that aim to avoid the settlement of unskilled foreign workers also make labor brokering a prominent feature of labor migration and migrant labor markets in the region."