The publication presents an overview of foreign labour recruitment practices in OECD member countries. It discusses challenges to the negotiation of labour recruitment agreements and the prospects for potential co-operation on migration.

Villagers in Indonesia hear a steady stream of stories about the injuries, abuses, and even deaths suffered by those who migrate in search of work. So why do hundreds of thousands of Indonesian workers continue to migrate every year? Carol Chan explores this question from the perspective of the origin community and provides a fascinating look at how gender, faith, and shame shape these decisions to migrate. Villagers evaluate men's and women's migrations differently, leading to different ideas about which kinds of human or financial flows should be encouraged and which should be discouraged or even criminalized. Despite routine and well-documented instances of exploitation of Indonesian migrant workers, some villagers still emphasize that a migrant's success or failure ultimately depends on that individual's morality, fate, and destiny. Indonesian villagers construct strategies for avoiding migration-related risks that are closely linked to faith and belief in supernatural agency. These strategies shape the flow of migration from the country and help to ensure the continued confidence Indonesian people have in migration as an act of promise and hope.

If the right policies are in place, labour migration can help countries respond to shifts in labour supply and demand, stimulate innovation and sustainable development, and transfer and update skills. However, a lack of international standards regarding concepts, definitions and methodologies for measuring labour migration data still needs to be addressed. This report gives global and regional estimates, broken down by income group, gender and age. It also describes the data, sources and methodology used, as well as the corresponding limitations. The report seeks to contribute to the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and to achieving SDG targets 8.8 and 10.7