Answer:The growing pace of economic globalization has created more migrant workers than ever before. Unemployment and increasing poverty have prompted many workers in developing countries to seek work elsewhere. It is estimated that 73 per cent of migrants are workers. In industrialized countries, demand for labour, especially unskilled labour, has increased. As a result, millions of workers and their families travel to countries other than their own to find work. Considerable efforts have been made over recent years to obtain reliable and comparable data on labour migration. However, as noted by the ILO and the international community, there remain significant gaps. In response, the ILO has published global and regional estimates of migrant workers. According to these estimates, there are at present approximately 244 million migrants around the world, representing 3.3 per cent of the global population. Women make up almost half of migrants. (Note 1) Migrant workers contribute to the economies of their host countries, and the remittances they send home help to boost the economies of their countries of origin. Yet, migrant workers often benefit from inadequate social protection and are vulnerable to exploitation and human trafficking. Skilled migrant workers are less vulnerable to exploitation, but their departure deprives some developing countries of the valuable labour needed for their own economies. ILO standards on migration provide tools for both countries of origin and of destination to manage migration flows and ensure adequate protection for this vulnerable category of workers.
