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Labour mobility and trade in services through the movement of natural

persons

Contact:

andreas.maurer@wto.org

joscelyn.magdeleine@wto.org

Agenda item 7

Issue paper 14

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Swissinfo.ch (30/04/2009)

Germans attracted to eastern Swiss job market

...”About one in two doctors come from nearby Germany; one in three consultants and one in four nurses hail from across the border.”

...”the number of cross-border workers from neighbouring Austria soared to more than 8300 people.”

“The agriculture sector does not find its labourers in neighbouring EU member countries except for the strawberry harvest”,...

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Movement of persons

• Employment opportunities• Income prospects• Improved technology

Labour mobility Trade in services

Where to draw the boundary?

Contract

Coverage

employment services

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Terminology / Boundary

Labour mobility

(employment contract)

Relocation of workers to improve allocation of resources with impact on income distribution, e.g.

• Intra corporate transfer

• Directly recruited by foreign-established company

Trade in services

(service contract)

Contractual service suppliers

• employees of foreign service providers

• self-employed

• intra-corporate transfer

• sales persons

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Value:

Number of persons:

Key indicators

Labour mobility Trade in services

Compensation of employees

Workers remittances

BPM6: Personal transfers

Services categories

RSIM Rev.1, IRTS 2008

Non-migrants

International migrants, of which short-term

Visitors

SNA, BPM, MSITS

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Transactions relating to employment or service contracts?

Employer-employee compensation of employeesrelationship

If not then BOP services categories

who controls?

which benefits for the person?

who pays social contributions?

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Options to assess Mode 4 delivery in surveys

1.Did the service delivery involve physical presence of service provider?

Yes? Then, how was most of the service value provided (time/resources)?

Mostly by fax, email, etc.

Natural person at the end (e.g. to supervise)

The person’s knowledge was essential

to deliver the service

Mode 4

2. Require in services surveys allocation by each GATS mode of supply

3. Require estimated share of services inputs for Mode 4 services trade

Mode 1

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Mode 4, migration and tourism statistics

Migrant categories

Non-migrant categories

Categories of the UN Recommendations

on Statistics of International

Migration, revision 1:

Length of stay of individuals

Purpose of trip or migration Less than 3 months

3 to 12 months

more than 12 months

Visitors Personal International

Holiday, leisure and recreation Recommendations on Visiting friends and relatives Tourism Statistics 2008 Education and training Health and medical care Shopping Etc.

Business and professional X x Contractual service supply X x - self-employed a X x - employed X x Intra-corporate transfer X x Serv. salespersons/ commercial pres. X x Other

Employment (migrant workers, employment-based settlement)

Intra corporate transfer x X Directly recruited by a foreign

established company x X

International civil servants Other

Family reunification/formation Etc. a

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Balance of payments labour related flows, World and leading economies, 2006, million USD

Compensation of Workers' remitances, Compensation of Workers' remitances,employees, Credits Credits employees, Debits Debits

All countries 82603 All countries 180715 All countries 95144 All countries 117259

France 11864 Mexico 25567 Switzerland 10658 United States 34433

Germany 7499 India 25109 United States 9489 Saudi Arabia 15611

Belgium 7239 Philippines 12481 Germany 8397 Spain 8578

Poland 5531 China 6830 Luxembourg 7450 Italy 5703

China 4319 Spain 6068 Russia 6067 Russia 4587

United States 2880 Indonesia 5560 United Kingdom 3329 Malaysia 4118

Philippines 2758 Romania 5509 Netherlands 2972 Switzerland 3718

Italy 2245 Morocco 5451 Italy 2645 Germany 3676

Hungary 2019 Bangladesh 5418 Norway 2620 Kuwait 3183

United Kingdom 1952 Egypt 5330 Israel 2334 Japan 3152

Source: IMF BOP Database, May 2009

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Sales of Services by GATS Modes of Supply: 2005 Statistical Approximation

Mode of Supply Estim ated share

1 - cross-border supp ly 25 - 30 %

2 - consum ption abroad 10 – 15 %

3 - com m ercia l presence 55 - 60 %

4 – presence of natural persons less than 5% (Approx. 150 billion USD)

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Questions

1. Common terminology when dealing with migration/labour mobility/trade in services?

2. Developing further guidelines for differentiating employment and services contracts?

3. Further research with respect to the impact of short-term labour mobility/trade in services on productivity measures?

4. More appropriate measures for analyzing short-term labour mobility and mode 4?

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5. Possible modifications to existing primary data collections to be explored?

6. Useful to integrate economic statistics and parts of social statistics through cross-classifying workers on the basis of:(a) economic activities to which they provide labour

input, classified by ISIC; (b) products resulting from their labour input (CPC); (c) skill and education level (ISCO-88 and/or ISCED); (d) category of worker (e.g. business visitor, working

for a foreign owned company, etc.); (e) length of stay; and (f) country of citizenship.

Questions