Measuring SDG indicator 10.7.1 on recruitment costs of migrant workers:Results from the recruitment cost-module in Maldives, 2019

Maldives Bureau of Statistics (MBS) with financial support from World Bank (WB) and technical assistance from the International Labour Organization (ILO) has introduced the Recruitment Cost module to the Household Income and Expenditure survey labour quarter component. The recruitment survey module was integrated into the Household Income and Expenditure survey labour quarter component. Because the survey was designed to be implemented in the labour quarters, the number of female migrant workers may be insufficient in the sample to reflect the real situation of the female migrant worker. Normal households as well as those labour quarters with less than 10 people were excluded from this study as the recruitment cost data were not available.

The analysis includes 75,537 migrant workers1 information of which 74,519 migrant workers were male. The results show differential levels in the recruitment costs in terms of the Nationality, skills (occupation) and sectors (industries). The average earnings of the migrant workers during their first month of working in Maldives within the past three years was about MVR 33,487 (approximately 2,172). The overall, recruitment cost indicator is an estimated 8.2 months. This means that it takes migrant workers an average 8.2 months to earn the equivalent of what they spent to access their job in Maldives.

SDG indicator 10.7.1 or the RCI is calculated as a ratio between the total recruitment costs paid by a migrant worker and the first month of earnings in the first job within the past three years. It shows the number of months that a migrant worker must work to cover the recruitment costs.

Migrant workers spent on average more than eight months of their salary (8.2 months) to pay back the recruitment costs for a job in Maldives. Migrant workers from Bangladesh used an average 11.2 months of their salary to cover their recruit­ment expenses. In terms of industry or the sector of work, workers in the manufacturing sector used the greatest portion of their first-year income, at 10.3 months salary. As for skill level, migrant workers in high-skill occupations used only 2.3 months of their income on average, compared with 8.5 months of average earnings by medium-skills workers for their recruitment costs.