Thursday 26 July 2012

Maoist threat triggers migration of Lohardaga children

Children are migrating from Jharkhand's Lohardaga region to avoid being kidnapped and coercively recruited by Maoists.

Maoists are known to have repeatedly attacked schools to disrupt education and use children as shields during their anti-government operations.

Dinesh Nageshiya, a student, expressed anguish over the increasing Maoist activities in the region.
"Maoists ask us to get involve with them and force us to take up arms," Nageshiya claimed.
The Maoists reportedly mobilise children in the age group of 6 to 12 into their junior wing and indoctrinate, train, and use them as informers against the administration.

They use children to gather intelligence apart from deploying them on sentry duties, to make and plant landmines and bombs, and also engage them in hostilities against government forces.

Interacting with mediapersons, Sub-Divisional Police Officer Ram Gulam Sharma said that social policing has helped them to keep a track of Maoists who forcibly recruit children for armed conflict.

"The Maoists always target the children belonging to poor and illiterate backgrounds. Through police-public cooperation, we conduct policing and this has created a huge impact on the locals as the children are not ready to join the Maoist camps and they have developed their interest in studies," said Sharma.

Maoists have significantly increased their presence in tribal and rural regions in the states of Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international voluntary forum, has been closely monitoring the recruitment of children by Maoists and views such admissions and attacks as a clear a violation of human rights. (ANI)

Monday 23 July 2012

Migrants add up for Immigration

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) has delivered on its permanent migration services program for 2011-12, coming within two of its planned 185,000 places.
 
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Bowen said skilled migration accounted for over two-thirds of the total migration program, with a 2011-12 skill stream outcome of 125,755 places.
 
“While the government’s first priority is always jobs for Australians, skilled migration is essential to support our economy and help overcome the challenges of an ageing population,” Mr Bowen said.

“Today’s skill stream is highly targeted towards employer sponsorship, the regions and high value occupations, with over 60 per cent of skilled migration visas going to employer, government and regional sponsored places to help fill critical skills needs.”
 
He said there were 16,471 places delivered under the highest priority Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme, with Western Australia accounting for 23.2 per cent of the outcome.

He said State and Territory sponsored visa classes were also delivered in record numbers, with the 22,247 places marking a 37.5 per cent increase on the previous year.
 
“For the first time, India was Australia’s largest source of permanent migrants, with a total of 29 018 places or 15.7 per cent of the total migration program,” Mr Bowen said.

“China and the United Kingdom were our second and third largest sources of permanent migrants, with 25,509 and 25,274 places respectively.
 
 “Seven of the top 10 source countries in Australia’s 2011-12 migration program are from Asia: India, China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea and Vietnam.”
 
He said the family stream which allowed Australians to unite with their close family and particularly with their partners and children had a final outcome of 58,604 places, representing 31.7 per cent of the total migration program.
 
The overall breakdown of the program by visa streams was skill stream 125,755 places; family stream 58,604 places; and special eligibility stream, 639.

Sunday 15 July 2012

Training tackles laws on illegal recruitment, trafficking in person

The Philippine Overseas Employment and Migration (POEA) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) presented on July 12, 2012 laws that would determine that illegal recruitment and trafficking in person are present during the hiring and recruitment of applicants abroad. 

Lawyer Antonio Millanes III of POEA presented five problems of illegal recruitment. He said illegal recruitment exist alongside legal migration, maybe committed by bothe licensed and unlicensed agencies, illegal recruiters may take advantage of announced job opportunities as an opportunity to dupe unsuspecting applicants, victims indifference and imbalance manpower supply.

The training was held at the provincial training center at the D.O. Plaza Government Center in Agusan del Sur.

“But these problems can be controlled by two prolonged nationwide anti-illegal recruitment campaign if we join our hands in delivering information and this is in the preventive side plus systematic law enforcement and prosecution on the remedial side,” Atty. Millanes III said.

Lawyer Jone Fung of the OIM said illegal recruitment shall mean any act of canvassing, enlisting, transporting, contracting, hring, utilizing, procuring of workers, referrals, contact services, promising and advertising for employment abroad, and Atty. Fung has elaborated all those acts in actual experience they have while enforcing the laws on against illegal recruitment.

“Before we trust anybody when we apply for work abroad, we have to see to it that the representative or agent can show us that the person or entity that he is representing has a valid license or holder of authority. We must also make sure that the agent or the representative transacting with us has been duly appointed by the license or holder of the authority and that the agent’s appointment was previously authorized by the POEA,” Fung said.

Glad of the training being conducted, Gov. Adolph Edward Plaza asked the POEA, , the DOLE and other government agencies to encourage legal and stable recruitment agencies to conduct recruitment in Agusan del Sur because according to him, the provincial government has set aside funds to help the applicants in processing the necessary requirements in order that they can work abroad. Gov. Plaza added that the provincial government is doing this because they want the families of Agusanons to have a better life, and the money that they will send to their families will only revolve in the province, while foreseeing that business and stability will follow.

The whole day activity ended up with training of the PNP and the prosecutors on criminal investigation and entrapment procedures and the discussion on the law on anti-trafficking in person. 

Thursday 12 July 2012

POEA campaigns for anti-illegal recruitment, anti-trafficking in persons

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is intensifying its campaign against illegal recruitment and anti-trafficking in persons.

In a statement, POEA-Caraga Regional Supervisor Marietta M. Bellotindos said the campaign is in relation to the agency’s project in upscaling and intensification of community-based migration information, orientation and advocacy campaign under the Millennium Development Goal-F Joint Programme on Youth, Employment and Migration (MDG-YEM).

Bellotindos said this is in support of POEA’s effort to continuously partner with several agencies in having a common goal of reaching the municipalities and provinces with high incidence of illegal recruitment and trafficking in persons.

Bellotindos further said this will also help in advancing a strengthened and simplified education and information dissemination campaign program.

With these developments, the official said the POEA National and Regional Center representatives are currently conducting series of activities on Campaign Against Illegal Recruitment, Trafficking in Persons and Irregular Migration (CAIRTIM) in Agusan del Sur.

Bellotindos said the activity includes several anti-illegal recruitment campaign activities pursuant to Republic Act 10022, which mandates local government units to have an active role in the overseas employment program, particularly in information dissemination.

Bellotindos said training on anti-illegal recruitment and anti-trafficking in persons for law enforcers and prosecutors is set on Thursday, July 12, 2012 at the Provincial Training Center, D.O. Plaza Government Center, Patin-ay, Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur.

Also, the signing of a new memorandum of understanding between the provincial government, POEA, Department of Labor and Employment, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and other involved agencies will take place on the same date and venue. (RER/PIA 13-Caraga) 

Monday 9 July 2012

Bob Hawke to front recruitment drive for Labor party

FORMER PM Bob Hawke will spearhead a recruitment drive as the Labor party looks to add thousands of new members. 
 
Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants the ALP nationally to recruit 8000 extra members and the NSW branch - which holds its annual conference in Sydney this weekend - is aiming to contribute to that figure by recruiting 2700 new members.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke, who is leading the "Recruiting to Win - Bob Hawke Challenge" campaign for the NSW branch, has written to all members asking them to recruit two friends for a membership fee of $5 before August.

Five members will get a chance to have dinner with the Labor stalwart in late August.
Labor has also produced for sale vintage election posters and badges featuring the former leader.

Sunday 8 July 2012

Australia to import more IT workers

While information and communication technology professionals say work is thin on the ground in some cities, industry figures point to a future where more foreign workers are shipped in to plug the gaps between what employers want and what's on offer locally.

Entity Solutions is one of the newest entrants to the market of importing ICT talent. The contractor management firm finalised an on-hire labour agreement late last month with the Department of Immigration, enabling it to bring up to 50 ICT workers a year into Australia, under the 457 visa program.
Businesses can use the program to sponsor workers from a range of occupations for up to four years, should they be unable to fill roles with qualified local staff. The process can be an expeditious one, with many overseas candidates able to report for duty within days of getting the nod.

Entity CEO Matthew Franceschini said a key part of negotiating the labour hire agreement had been demonstrating that the firm's clients had been unable to find appropriately skilled workers from within Australia.
"We have been able to demonstrate that to the government," Franceschini said.
Our clients have skilled positions they are unable to fill. There's a global shortage of talent – it's as simple as that."

But in the ever-volatile ICT sector, one man's shortage can be another's surfeit. Entity's announcement comes as local recruiters and employers point to a slowdown in the market for contract staff.

Many ICT professionals are critical of the 457 visa system, which they say makes it too easy for large companies to substitute local staff with cut-price equivalents from overseas, either directly or via third-party service providers.

"Those of us on reasonably good salaries are being replaced by Indian or other international workforces at salaries significantly less than enterprises would be paying their staff," one senior IT network executive working on contract told IT Pro.

"There's an underlying theme here, in that the number of IT jobs in westernised countries are probably not reducing by as much as being reported, but merely being usurped by backdoor means through offshoring."
Employers would rather hire locally but it was not always possible, Franceschini claimed, and many clients around the country were keen to find a quick solution which fulfilled their needs.

Entity plans to use its 457 quota to sponsor developers, programmers and software engineers into Australia.
They'll join the 90,280 skilled workers, 8800 of them in the information, media and telecoms industry, who held primary 457 visas as of 31 May, according to Department of Immigration figures.

The sector accounted for 10 per cent of the 47,980 applications received from July 2011 to May 31, with ICT positions attracting an average annual remuneration package of $85,100.

Candidates most commonly hailed from the UK, India and Ireland, with workers from these countries collectively accounting for half of all 457 applications granted.

Successful ICT applicants included 1870 developer programmers, 1110 ICT business analysts and 1080 software programmers.

While recruiters continue to cite skill shortages outside the southern capitals, particularly in the resource driven WA market, 7760 of the 8800 ICT hires on 457 visas were drafted for positions based in NSW and Victoria.

Head of listed recruitment services group Clarius Kym Quick said the number of high tech 457 applications would rise significantly in the future, if Australian students continued to eschew computer science and information technology courses.

ICT enrolments in local universities have halved over the past decade while in NSW high schools, just seven per cent of students are studying Information Processes and Technology, down from 17.9 per cent in 2003.

Economically-moribund Ireland, where the unemployment rate has soared since the global financial crisis, had become an especially popular source of willing-to-relocate, high tech workers, Quick said.
Some larger employers were forging their own links with overseas agents to improve their access to this talent pool, she added.

The chief executive officer of the Australian Information Industry Association, Suzanne Campbell, said systemic issues in the education system meant there was an ongoing and significant gap between the supply and demand of ICT skills in Australia.

"Industry uses 457 visas to supplement that deficiency," Campbell said.

Holders of the 457 visa span the entire ICT industry, from project delivery staff, software specialists and systems integrators through to senior executives managing major projects and programs, Campbell said.

Wednesday 4 July 2012

Migration Flows Make The World Go Round

The 27-nation European Union is one of the main catalysts for international economic exchanges, including migration. Its prospects of growth and employment have a direct bearing on global migration flows. What is happening in Europe today is therefore one determining factor for international migration flows in the coming years.

In fact, as OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría says, labour market developments and migration flows are closely linked. "The decline in labour demand has been the driving force behind the fall in migration during the crisis, not restrictions imposed by migration policies, as our 2012 International Migration Outlook shows," he said presenting the report in Brussels on June 27. 

"Countries should therefore pay more attention to their long-term labour market needs, focus on skills and devise policies for the integration of migrants, particularly the young, whose competencies will be needed as the global economy recovers," he added.

The OECD report finds that the global financial and economic crisis and the subsequent Great Recession had a tremendously negative impact on employment globally. Migrants, along with youth, were particularly affected by the global jobs contraction – and even more so young migrants. The impact was so strong, that migration flows into OECD countries experienced important declines during 2008 and 2009.

In 2010, migration inflows declined again, for a third year in a row. However, as the recovery started gaining momentum in several OECD countries, this decline was modest (of around -3% compared to 2009) and the number of migrants in the 23 OECD countries measured (plus Russia) totalled just over 4.1 million, a higher number than in any year prior to 2005. The preliminary figures for 2011 show that immigration flows started to increase again in 2011 in several OECD countries." We will have to see if this trend holds, given the new bout of economic weakness," said Gurría.

Interestingly, these new increases are not related to the particularly hard times that some Southern European countries are going through. In fact, emigration from countries like Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain increased only very modestly.

Free mobility of labour

A second key message of the study, said Gurria, is that free mobility of labour enhances its adaptability to changing labour market conditions.

"Take the case of Europe. Free mobility within the region accounted for much of the overall decline in immigration inflows since 2007, almost half a million. Still, free mobility continues to account for almost 40% of migration flows into the European OECD countries," the OECD head pointed out.

This issue of free mobility and its broader implications for the labour market is at the heart of another OECD publication on migration released on June 27: 'Free Movement of Workers and Labour Market Adjustment - Recent Experiences from OECD countries and the European Union'. This study shows how free mobility favours the labour markets adaptability to changing conditions or downturns, and portrays it as a great advantage.

Referring to the salient features of the '2012 International Migration Outlook', Gurria said. the decline in intra-EU migration flows in the post-crisis period has not been driven by policy restrictions, but rather the decline in demand for labour. "This important lesson is reflected in the experience of countries like Sweden, which fully opened up its labour market for migration in 2008 but did not experience a strong increase in labour immigration. This should make us think twice before we consider closing the doors to immigration as an adequate answer to unemployment."

Demographic change

Another determinant factor for migration policies is the demographic change, said Gurria. "It is highly important to gauge the implications of the current crisis on migration flows and to review our policies under this challenging dynamic. But it is also crucial that we take into account longer term trends, like the demographic transformations in our societies. And this is not just a question of how many new workers there are to replace those who retire. As the 2012 International Migration Outlook reflects, labour markets are changing too rapidly to consider demographic imbalances alone as a reliable indicator of future occupational needs."

The report projects that by 2015, immigration – at the current level – will not be sufficient to maintain the working age population in many OECD countries, especially in the EU. But the coming labour and skills shortages are not a simple function of demographic imbalances, they also depend on the changing nature of demand for particular skills and the extent to which they can be filled from existing sources of supply.
"The links between occupational growth and decline, demographic imbalances and the need for immigrant workers are therefore far from obvious," noted Gurria.

Over the past decade, new immigrants represented 15% of entries into strongly-growing occupations in Europe, and 22% in the United States. They are thus playing a significant role in responding to labour demand in the most dynamic sectors of the economy. Many jobs which migrants are entering are new jobs, while many jobs from which older workers are retiring are being cut.

But even in occupations where overall employment is declining, there is still recruitment.  New immigrants account for around 25% of new entries in these occupations in Europe and the United States, as these jobs are often less attractive to native workers. In other words, labour migration is not so much about replacing retiring workers, but about satisfying the changing needs of the labour market.

According to Gurria, one particularly interesting trend analysed in the latest International Migration Outlook is the changing role of Asia in international migration:

Migration dynamics in, from and to Asia are becoming more and more important for OECD countries. Asia's share in migration flows to OECD countries has grown impressively: In 2010, Asia has been the leading source region of new migration and accounted for 35% of all immigration flows. This represents more than 1.8 million persons, an increase of 56% over 2000.

According to the report, the share of migrants from Asia among immigrants to OECD countries rose from 27% in 2000 to 31% in 2010, with China alone accounting for about 10%. China and India between them also account for 25% of international students in OECD countries. In the long-term, as Asia develops and offers more attractive jobs locally and itself attracts more skilled workers from abroad, OECD countries will be less able to rely on this steady stream of skilled workers.

"So if OECD countries want to rely on a steady stream of skilled workers from Asia in the future, they must take steps to maintain or rather improve their attractiveness as a destination for Asian skilled workers and students," averred Gurria.