More workers are crossing national borders to look for jobs than ever before. Many migrants seek overseas employment with the help of agents or intermediaries. These "merchants of labour" include relatives who finance a migrant's trip, provide housing and arrange for a job abroad; public employment services; and private recruitment agencies. They also comprise an insalubrious underworld of smugglers and traffickers. The agents who recruit and deploy migrant workers are at the heart of the evolving migration infrastructure, i.e. the network of business and personal ties that is creating a global labour market. This book highlights best practices in the activities and regulation of these merchants of labour as well as innovative strategies to protect migrant workers, underlining the contribution of ILO standards. It covers a broad range of national and regional experiences and puts "merchants of labour" in the wider context of changing employment relationships in globalizing labour markets. The papers it contains are an important contribution to understanding a major mechanism facilitating the growth of the migrant labour force.

Some 10 million migrant workers cross national borders each year. This book examines the businesses that move low-skilled workers, explaining recruitment, remuneration and retention, and showing how national borders increase recruitment costs. Tackling the often murky world of labor migration, it fills an important void in this fast-growing field.

Discusses the relationship between trade and employment and the way in which trade policies and labour market policies affect this relationship.

Table of Contents 1 Personnel economics and non-competitive labour markets 1 2 The optimal skill ratio 11 3 The hours-employment trade-off 27 4 Temporary or permanent? 45 5 Managing adverse selection in recruiting 62 6 Optimal compensation schemes : foundation 82 7 Pay for performance with wage constraints 107 8 Relative compensation and efficiency wage 132 9 Training and human capital investment 152 10 Training investment in imperfect labour markets 171 11 Job destruction 187 12 Further issues in employment protection legislation 202 13 Teams of group incentives 218 App. A Labour demand at the firm level 232 App. B Constrained optimization 238.