The Future of Labor: Lessons from India in the Global Race for Talent

This transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies. If you notice an error, feel free to email [email protected].

CHAPTERS 

[00:02:00]: Who is migrating from India, where, and in what numbers 

[00:04:58]: How migration patterns differ dramatically across Indian states 

[00:08:26]: What labor migration looks like on the ground in Andhra Pradesh 

[00:11:38]: What bilateral agreements deliver—and what they miss 

[00:15:07]: Scaling up migration to Germany remains a challenge 

[00:18:16]: India’s perspective on brain drain 

[00:20:53]: Navigating an era of rising anti-immigration sentiment in India 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:05.15] 

Welcome to the World of Migration, a podcast from the Migration Policy Institute. I'm Ravenna Sohst, and in this episode we're zooming in on one of the biggest shifts in the global labor market today: the growing competition for skilled workers across borders. Around the world, countries are facing labor shortages in critical sectors, from healthcare to construction, tech and logistics. As populations age and industries evolve, international recruitment is no longer a niche issue. It's a strategic priority. Countries are developing new visa programs, launching partnerships to recruit international talent, while also training workers who remain in the origin countries racing to attract the workers they need to stay competitive. India, with its large and young labor force, is often seen as a solution in this story. And it's worth noting that no country has more of its citizens living abroad than India. What does this global race for talent look like from the Indian side? Who gets a chance to migrate and why? How is India navigating its relationship with destination countries from the Middle East to Germany? And how can labor mobility be managed in a way that benefits workers, employers, countries of origin and countries of destination alike?

[00:01:19.02] 

To unpack this, I'm joined by Seeta Sharma, an expert in migration and development who has worked with the government of India, the International Labor Organization NGOs and governments across Asia, the Gulf, Europe, to advance labor mobility opportunities for India. Currently, she's advising the government of Andhra Pradesh, a state on the east coast of India, on international migration and skilling. Seeta, welcome. It's such a pleasure to have you here.

[00:01:45.02] 

Thank you. I'm pleased to be here too.

[00:01:48.01] 

Seeta, can you paint a very brief picture on India's labor migration landscape today? What are the most important destination for Indians working abroad, who's going and in what numbers?

[00:02:00.09] 

So the number of Indians going overseas for work is about 2 million annually. It's probably the largest in the world from a single country. Put in context, of course, we have about 600 million people in the 18 to 35 age group. So it is a very small percentage of the working age population of India. We have traditionally seen Indians going to the Gulf. This is the main destination and has been for several years now. But there is a shift happening and the trends are now towards more higher skilled kind of workers going to countries in the OECD. You have more people going now to, you know, Europe, Australia. This is where the movement is happening now. But what is also significant is that most are men. So the percentage of women is extremely low from India in terms of workers going independently. And this is a trend that we have seen for a while now, and the age group that actually goes is the 31 to 45, really is the age group that is the most significant. This is clearly showing that people who are more skilled and experienced are the ones who actually go from India.

[00:03:18.16] 

So that's like the broader statistics of, you know, how in, in the spectrum of migration, where things are in India at the moment.

[00:03:28.04] 

Yeah, very interesting. Also the, the gender dimension, do Indian workers tend to concentrate in particular sectors and countries? For instance, in the, in the U.S. Context, Indian immigrants have long been associated with the tech and healthcare sectors. But are there interesting or maybe unexpected concentrations as well?

[00:03:46.14] 

Well, it is true that Indians are known for IT and health workers. A lot of the U.S. NHS is dominated by, you know, Indian nurses and doctors. But if you ever have the Parmesan cheese of Italy, let me tell you, it's probably coming from an Indian. So Indian farmers are in the cheese making industry of Italy, for example. And there's, you know, there's large number of Indians in like the finance sector of Singapore, for example, Australia. The largest number of skilled workers. Visas that were given were given to Indians. So Indians are kind of spreading out. You also have construction workers and drivers in Eastern Europe, for example. So Indians are across, I would say a range of sectors and different people going different places. So while we are kind of known to be the IT world, I think you will find that we are very diversified when we go across the world. So I think Indians are cutting across many sectors, you know, everywhere. But it is also true that the Indians that are going are more higher skilled than they were traditionally and a little bit away from the Gulf.

[00:04:58.20] 

Now let's have a closer look now at the inside perspective, given that India is a very vast and diverse country. I know that from my own experience with over 1.4 billion people spread across 28 states. And each of these states has its own migration story. States like Kerala in the south have long histories of overseas migration, while others are just really starting to engage with it. From your perspective, what are some of the key differences across the Indian states when it comes to labor migration?

[00:05:31.15] 

So historic labor migration from India, you know, goes back a long way. And what has happened is that those pathways have, and those connections have continued to pull migrants. So Kerala has been dominant for many years. The path was really towards the Gulf, but it shifted. And now we find that the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan are dominating the flows that go to the Gulf. And this is really wage arbitrage more than anything else. It's got to do with the Fact that the wages are no longer attractive for Keralites and therefore they've stopped going to those destinations and are exploring newer destinations. The historic trends tend to stick also. So from, you know, South India, for example, has been-Tamil Nadu is a state which has been sending to Singapore for decades now. You know, this can be linked back to the historic indentured labor that went, you know, centuries ago. And those networks, those connections have continued. So you'll find that, you know, from some of these southern states of Tamil Nadu, for example, they're going eastward towards Singapore, Malaysia, you know, this side, you have people from Gujarat in the diamond trade who go to Holland, Russia.

[00:06:51.08] 

So you find that these trends are there. But what is also happening is there are some shifting trends. The state of Andhra Pradesh, where I am currently based in, actually has been going to the U.S. For a long time now. And many of the doctors, in fact 25% of the diaspora in the U.S. Comes from this kind of region. But increasingly now with interventions, we think things are shifting and changing. So it's quite interesting that if you look at the hubs for where most of the people go to Europe, it's like Karnataka, Bangalore, that's where the IT industry has been and that's creating new pathways that are going to Europe, for example. So I know that the state I'm in has about a pass out of about 30,000 nurses annually. And I know that as the demand for nurses is growing across Europe, this is where the pathways are going to be created. So we will see. We've traditionally seen some pathways and they're sticky and they're going to stay. But new pathways are also being created because the demands in the world are changing so dramatically and so fast that I think new pathways are going to keep coming up.

[00:07:59.12] 

There will be some states that will continue to lag behind that don't have any migration history or don't have any ecosystems for migration. They will continue to probably be slower. But all the other states that have historically seen migration will continue to see more migration and diversified migration. So Kerala will go more to Europe now than the Gulf, for example. So just those shifts are going to be dynamic, I think in the next five to 10 years.

[00:08:26.22] 

You already briefly mentioned your work in Andhra Pradesh and I'm curious to hear more. You recently took up work there and advising the government on international skilling and migration policy. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and any insights from your work there?

[00:08:43.14] 

So Andhra Pradesh is actually has been-some districts of Andhra Pradesh have been a traditional sending you know, state to the U.S. in some ways, right? Doctors, engineers, you know, they've been-also IT-these are the sectors that, you know, people have been going in traditionally. But there is now a very small new pipeline of teachers going to the U.S. We also have a Jewish community here, so we have care workers that have been going to Israel, for example. We also have, you know, domestic workers going to the Gulf from certain regions. Just old linkages that have stayed. But there are also, like I said, new emerging, you know, destinations coming up. We have people interested in Japan. There's an engineering college, in fact, that does direct placements with the support of a recruiter going to Japan. These are engineers. So there are new pathways coming up. And my job partly here is to see that some of those pathways move forward. So we have, you know, we have a lot of demand coming in from Germany, for example, for trades, skill trades, nurses, there's a lot of that coming in. So we just feel that there will be shifts coming in.

[00:10:00.14] 

There's a new partnership with Korea, for example, coming in. And we expect that that will then lead to migration from this state. So I think as ecosystems develop, we will find that new pathways are emerging. But it's a little bit dependent on, of course, how people respond, how people hear stories, because stories become critical. So the first people who go send back stories, and those become very critical. And we are actually tapping into those stories because this state has diaspora, over 100 nations or something. So we are actually tapping into some of those stories so that we can create interactives between old diaspora and the new youngsters who are aspirational and want to explore new countries. So we're trying to create those connects which will help them to also consider where they can go in the future. So I think there's a lot of excitement in the air. The population is so young in India that everywhere that there is a slight buzz. It kind of just picks up and starts moving because the young people are all keen and aspirational to explore and, you know, see where they can go with their lives. So I think it's a very different time in India in that sense.

[00:11:08.05] 

From what you say,

[00:11:08.24] 

It's become really clear that diaspora engagement policies and labor migration policies are closely linked, which is not perhaps well understood all the time. And you also mention all the new pathways that have been created from Korea to Japan, Australia and Germany. India has signed a range of bilateral and multilateral agreements with countries interested in attracting Indian talent. What's in these partnerships for India? What do they look like in practice?

[00:11:38.10] 

I've actually been a part of these agreements. So I can tell you quite clearly that they cover almost all aspects of migration. So they look at regular migration, irregular migration, students, entrepreneurs, different visa categories. So they kind of COVID a broad range of where the mobility can happen. It also has quotas in some countries mentioned. I know in Australia we were able to negotiate even a separate visa category for Indians. So they have been very useful to set the framework and to show the kind of interest from both sides to work on this issue. And they kind of lay the ground. Yeah, so they've put that in place. What happens on the ground now this is also interesting. Some of these agreements are very new, so it's really early days in some ways. But on the ground, the thing is, these are policy documents. They don't necessarily have an implementation kind of protocol or something which is part of these agreements. So that has to be worked out by the stakeholders themselves. And as you know, migration is a market-driven thing. It is not driven by governments, this is driven by the market. And the truth is that somehow that market component is not necessarily considered in these documents or necessarily built-in or seen as a real, you know, strong stakeholder that needs to participate in these processes.

[00:13:09.01] 

Often recruiters are often not even seen as, you know, the people who will do this work, whereas they are the critical piece in making migration happen. So I think somewhere down the line there are good intentions and these documents are really about laying the policy and the intention of the two countries. There is no implementation linked to it. And in a way that actually makes it very hard because everybody then has to start thinking about how to make these agreements actually work in real life. And India, I don't know if you, if you know, the world recognizes this, but for India to be pro-migration and really be promoting migration in a way is a new policy mandate. It's not something that India has done before. So it's only about 10 years old or so. You know, earlier India just said that people went as they went and it was not promoting migration in any way. So for India also, this is very new, the promotion of migration. And there isn't the infrastructure on the ground to actually make this happen. So we are kind of got good policy intentions, the agreements are good in their own way, but we don't have an ecosystem that can actually make this happen on its own.

[00:14:25.02] 

And the only market forces, like I mentioned, the recruiters that do make this happen are quite sidelined in this process. So the real impact of these agreements will take a few years for us to really judge and know what's happening. But I also think that there's no clear path on how this will happen.

[00:14:44.01] 

Very interesting. Also on the role of the recruiters in the private sector and making them really front and center of these agreements. Let's take a closer look at the agreement that was signed between India and Germany in 2022, which is significant, I think, from both sides. But where do you see the biggest hurdles in this specific agreement yet in scaling up labor migration to Germany?

[00:15:07.16] 

So this agreement, I've been a part of this process as well. I was in the negotiations for this agreement. It's a good agreement. There's a lot of really good things that it's to going covered, including skilling and, you know, recognitions and things like that. So I think it's made a really good policy document. Like I said, either side doesn't know now how this will really work on the ground. And I think the hurdle is partly how we have perceived private sector's role or lack of it, but also I think we're in a hurry and we're expecting results will happen. It was signed in '23. It is now about one and a half years old or so. And expecting such quick movements or pathways to be created in migration, I think is a misnomer. I think it takes time. People have to know about the country, they have to trust the processes, and then they have to move. And one of the biggest issues with Germany, if you honestly want to know, is the language barrier. If it takes eight to nine months for someone to actually learn the language, the person loses interest. There are other countries that they may want to explore.

[00:16:15.21] 

They drop out, they may get a job locally. So I think that time to hold somebody for that time for a language which they cannot really learn very easily here, I think makes it really quite hard for people to be able to move very fast. I know the German government has, you know, lowered some barriers on the language front as well, and they are trying to make that happen. But at the same time, I think that, you know, this is a real barrier and there are a lot of, you know, the migration costs can be quite high. They're very regulated. The, you know, employers from the German end have been really good at many levels, but the cost of learning the language, also some of the apprenticeship movements from India is very, very expensive. So one is beginning to see that these are some issues that may need to be addressed. But having said all of that, if you look at Germany now, we have 300,000 people study German right now. And I Think that's very exciting. It also indicates the level of interest of the young people to go to Germany now.

[00:17:20.22] 

And if I talk to youngsters on the ground now, they're like, oh, Germany is the first country that's kind of coming to them. Especially as countries like the U.S. Seem very difficult at the moment, people are turning and Germany is really the rising star. I've said this before. You know, it's timing. It will take a couple of years, but I think in the next three to five years, you know, Germany will get a lot of Indians. There's a lot of interest. The pathways are being created. I think both sides are quite ready for, you know, taking immigrants in in Germany. So I think things will reach the point of, you know, satisfaction, I would say, for policymakers. But migration takes time. You know, it doesn't happen overnight. And especially when you have a language barrier that is this long, it does take time to happen. But I think Germany is probably the best in terms of where it's going.

[00:18:16.06] 

When you talk about labor migration, you can't talk about it without coming up against the issue of brain drain, the idea that a country suffers human capital loss when its people leave. How is this issue viewed in India, which is the world's leading exporter of international positions, for example?

[00:18:35.05] 

So, you know, honestly, at the policy level, this is not a conversation. You know, we do not talk of brain drain at all at the policy levels. We are a country of 1.4 billion people and 600 million of those are working age. Right? So we do have a very, very large number of workers here. And the whole idea is India has seen a lot of brain gain as well. While the industry does bleed, and I'm not going to say it doesn't. So it's not like our health care will not suffer or that IT industry is not seeing losses of some of the best talent. But at the same time, we also see brain circulation and really good results. I mean, if I just take a moment to give you an example, the Bangalore IT industry flourished because people came back from the U.S. and set up, you know, startups here. And that is how the startup ecosystem actually came about. A lot of them were returnees with money, with, you know, wealth they had earned, as well as networks and technology that they had kind of gained while being overseas. And they had come back and set up these, you know, startups.

[00:19:40.11] 

And India really grew in that manner. And there's also been the same with medical. There's some of the biggest, biggest hospital chains in India are from returnees, people who did come back from overseas and start up hospitals, set up these huge hospitals in India. So in India we talk a lot about brain circulation. We talk about the gains we make from having migrants back, the geopolitical influence that the diaspora actually has in countries and enhances our trade. So it's kind of seen in a larger spectrum and in a larger sphere rather than just as a simple we lose people and then there's no people. One of the things, for example, the government did was when we realized there was a large demand for nurses, they just opened up and created many more nursing schools. And that is how India just kind of picks up very fast because we have the numbers and we have the capability to kind of bridge very quickly some of the losses.

[00:20:38.11] 

Great. We're almost coming to an end. But we of course, in a moment where we are witnessing some countries that turn against immigration, how do you see this playing out for India at least over the next coming months or in the short term?

[00:20:53.02] 

So I think there is an immediate fallout. I mean, for example, the U.S. Now with its current policies is creating, you know, tensions here for a lot of people. But overall for India, I don't think we get phased by these things. I think people understand that there is a huge demand in the world. There is no running away from there. We also know that even though doors shut, they will open because employers will need people. There is no escaping from that. And while, you know, some countries close and some countries open, we think that Indians and India overall will actually manage to still be an attractive origin kind of source country and will continue to provide talent across the world. We're not really... As things open and close, India's also has good political relations across, which also means that doors remain open for Indians. And because we have highly skilled people, if you notice policy, it  shuts down. Yes, sometimes the doors close, but the highly skilled, the very talented, the doors don't close on that. So you're not going to see doors slam down for health workers in most cases. Right. And this is where India steps up.

[00:22:06.02] 

So India sends high skilled workers, the IT people. You know, it's not like they're going to stop taking them. It's not like the world is going to shift so fast that you won't need IT people. So I think India does not actually respond and react to these changes in the manner that the world will or sees it like that. Because also people have many, many options. It's not as if one country is the only option when one country's doors close, the other one opens and some other territories open up. So I think overall, you know, I think we are quite mature to understand that the markets keep shifting and changing and, you know, India will continue to be a favored origin for many countries and our people will continue to the talent will just break through the barriers. So while we can get troubled in the short term, I think in the long term, we know that it will continue. And it's not something that we will get very troubled about, I think.

[00:23:00.18] 

Thank you so much. Seeta. This has been a really interesting conversation, learning about India, about the differences between the states, the possibility for future cooperation with various countries and other things such as the gender distribution, new pathways that are opening. And we're certainly interested in following your work in Andhra Pradesh and more broadly. Thank you so much for coming.

[00:23:24.10] 

Thank you. It's been a really good conversation. I've enjoyed it. So thank you so much.

[00:23:29.17] 

To our listeners,

[00:23:30.17] 

thank you for tuning in to another episode of World of Migration. If you enjoyed this conversation, please check out our other episodes. You can find World of Migration wherever you get your podcasts, and while you're there, please leave us a review. You can find all the episodes of this and other MPI podcasts at MPI's website, migrationpolicy.org/podcasts this episode of World of Migration was produced by Elizabeth Navarro, with additional assistance from Lisa Dixon and editorial input from Michelle Mittelstadt. Our theme music is called Bright Idea by Geographer. I'm Ravenna Sohst. Thank you for listening and see you next time.