Current Trends in Labor Immigration in the Gulf Cooperation Council States

The GCC states currently rank 3rd in the world in terms of the total number of migrants, whose absolute majority are labor migrants. The number of international migrants in the states of the association tripled since 2000 to 2020, from 10 million to almost 31 million people, which amounted to 11 % of the global flow. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait are among the 20 most popular countries for immigration in the world. The migration policy of these countries is determined by: absolute dependence on migrants, the widespread presence of the Kafala system (recently it has been undergoing reform), preferential employment for indigenous residents, temporary status of migrants and stay on the basis of temporary work visas, absolute dominance of indigenous residents in the public sector and in management positions of high-profit companies, the absence of prospects for obtaining citizenship or refugee status, and a strict policy towards illegal or unauthorized labor migrants. The wars in Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen and Syria have changed the migration pattern, reorienting it from other Arab states to the states of South and Southeast Asia. Among the Arab states, migrant workers from Egypt have not only maintained but also increased their presence. The India-UAE, India-Saudi Arabia, Indonesia-Saudi Arabia migration corridors are among the twenty largest migration corridors in the world. Mainly due to the religious factor and the employment of foreign workers in the so-called “3D sector”, the gender structure of the migration flow is significantly dominated by men. All ten of the world’s largest male-dominated migration corridors are directed towards the GCC countries. In the total flow of migrants to the GCC states, women make up only 28 %, 87 % of which are distributed between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. The main flows of remittances from the region are directed to India, Egypt, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Bangladesh.