This labour market trends analysis was conducted to better understand the characteristics and dynamics of the labour migration process in the countries to where they are bound. Such insight is intended to lead to better protection of migrants and to help maximize the economic benefits from migration for all parties and ultimately to help improve the experience of South Asian migrant workers going abroad for employment.

The majority of South Asian migrant workers (from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal) journey abroad for jobs in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries of Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but also to jobs in India and Malaysia.

The labour market trends analysis entailed a series of studies in the six major countries of destination (India, Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) to determine the current labour migration framework conditions and assess future demand. Then a series of studies in countries of origin was conducted to describe their migration profiles in the context of the destination countries studies. This report is a consolidation and analysis of the findings from the six individual destination country studies and related literature. The studies examined the labour demand in countries of destinations, the present and emerging relationships between national economies, employment characteristics and labour demand and how various migrant labour policies translate into different forms of preference or restriction. The actual characteristics of migrant labour in countries of destinations, the filtering and distorting mechanisms of the recruitment mechanisms and the way the migrant labour preparation and recruitment