Introduction

The PECC countries of the Pacific Americas have had varied experiences with international labour mobility and it has become an increasingly prominent feature of their economic and social landscape. While the two developed PECC members in the hemisphere – Canada and the United States – have been net labour recipient countries throughout their history and more so recently, the four developing Latin American PECC members – Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile – have been net exporters of labour. The net labour recipient countries are experiencing shortages in certain worker categories, particularly those of skilled labour, but are hesitant for social and political reasons to aggressively expand their intake of immigrants. While they encourage immigration by skilled professionals, academics and executives, they have in place a much less clear policy towards the acceptance of unskilled labour. For three of the net labour sending countries in Latin America (Chile being the exception), outward migration flows, both temporary and permanent, have expanded tremendously over the past 15 years. For these countries, flows consist of both semi-skilled and unskilled workers on short term contracts (overseas contract workers) or at times, under an irregular work status.

Demographic changes in the Americas are contributing to the need for greater labour flows, as the population is ageing more quickly in Canada and the United States than in Latin American countries. More than half of the population in Colombia, Mexico and Peru is under 15 years of age. These changes in population structure will mean greater labour shortages in the future in the developed economies and greater pressure for both temporary and permanent labour flows to sustain the momentum of economic growth and to care for the elderly.

Because of their different perspectives, labour mobility through migration has had differing types of costs and benefits, being generally very beneficial for the recipient countries, and of a mixed nature for the sending countries.