Publication:
Migration, Automation, and the Malaysian Labor Market

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
2024-11-08
ISSN
Published
2024-11-08
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper aims to strengthen the evidence base on the employment of migrant workers, the employment of Malaysian workers, and the automatability of tasks performed within occupations in Malaysia. It provides an updated analysis on the relationship between immigration and labor market outcomes of Malaysians. This paper also analyzes the relative automatability of tasks performed by migrant and native workers, which has implications on employment. Findings show a generally positive relationship between immigration and the employment outcomes of Malaysian workers. Further, migrant workers are more likely to perform tasks that are automatable even when compared to Malaysian workers with similar qualifications. Importantly, given that Malaysian workers make up a much larger share of the workforce, the adoption of automation technologies will ultimately have a substantive impact on Malaysians workers. This potential impact can be mitigated by a strengthening of active labor market policies. Also, strengthening the foreign worker management system towards being more demand-driven would be a worthwhile endeavor.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank. 2024. Migration, Automation, and the Malaysian Labor Market. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42388 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    The Effect of Weather-Induced Internal Migration on Local Labor Markets : Evidence from Uganda
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-09) Strobl, Eric; Valfort, Marie-Anne
    Relying on census data collected in 2002 and historical weather data for Uganda, this paper estimates the impact of weather-induced internal migration on the probability for non-migrants living in the destination regions to be employed. Consistent with the prediction of a simple theoretical model, the results reveal a larger negative impact than the one documented for developed countries. They further show that this negative impact is significantly stronger in Ugandan regions with lower road density and therefore less conducive to capital mobility: a 10 percentage points increase in the net in-migration rate in these areas decreases the probability of being employed of non-migrants by more than 10 percentage points.
  • Publication
    Labor Markets in Rural and Urban Haiti : Based on the First Household Survey for Haiti
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008-03) Verner, Dorte
    This paper addresses labor markets in Haiti, including farm and nonfarm employment and income generation. The analyses are based on the first Living Conditions Survey of 7,186 households covering the whole country and representative at the regional level. The findings suggest that four key determinants of employment and productivity in nonfarm activities are education, gender, location, and migration status. This is emphasized when nonfarm activities are divided into low-return and high-return activities. The wage and producer income analyses reveal that education is key to earning higher wages and incomes. Moreover, producer incomes increase with farm size, land title, and access to tools, electricity, roads, irrigation, and other farm inputs.
  • Publication
    Lao PDR - Labor Standards and Productivity in the Garments Export Sector : A Survey of Managers and Workers
    (Washington, DC, 2012-07) World Bank
    This report describes labor practices in the Lao garments export sector as seen by both management and labor. The main objective of this report is to present the differing perspectives on working conditions between managers and workers, and to explore ways in which the Lao garment sector could break out of this unsustainable situation. More specifically, insights on management practices, working conditions and worker motivation, as well as industry technology and workflow practices, are drawn from the survey and recommendations made on what firms, industry, government and development partners can do to boost productivity in the sector. This study seeks to investigate further possible factors contributing to low-productivity including management practices, working conditions and worker motivation, as well as industry technology and workflow practices. In order for the garment sector to progress, this study points to possibilities to increase worker wellbeing, reduce turnover and improve productivity through mutually reinforcing actions. Possible interventions include: a transition support program and improved labor market information systems to support labor force entry; better worker representation and dispute resolution mechanisms; and, a factories improvement program that would include monitoring/certification systems to provide incentives for firms to improve conditions as a means of accessing elusive premium buyers.
  • Publication
    Diaspora Networks and the International Migration of Skills : How Countries Can Draw on their Talent Abroad
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Kuznetsov, Yevgeny
    Network diasporas are but the latest bridge connecting developing economy insiders, with their risk-mitigating knowledge and connections, to outsiders in command of technical know-how and investment capital. This book examines the interaction of expatriate talent with institutions in expatriates' countries of origin in an attempt to make the potential of diasporas and their knowledge a reality. The question of how to trigger and sustain such a virtuous cycle is a central concern of this book. The focus is on the "how to" details of how to design effective diaspora networks and transform brain drain into brain gain.
  • Publication
    Distortions in the International Migrant Labor Market : Evidence from Filipino Migration and Wage Responses to Destination Country Economic Shocks
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04) Theoharides, Caroline; McKenzie, David; Yang, Dean
    The authors use an original panel dataset of migrant departures from the Philippines to identify the responsiveness of migrant numbers and wages to gross domestic product shocks in destination countries. They find a large significant elasticity of migrant numbers to gross domestic product shocks at destination, but no significant wage response. This is consistent with binding minimum wages for migrant labor. This result implies that labor market imperfections that make international migration attractive also make migrant flows more sensitive to global business cycles. Difference-in-differences analysis of a minimum wage change for maids confirms that minimum wages bind and demand is price sensitive without these distortions.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Women, Business and the Law 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-04) World Bank
    Women, Business and the Law 2024 is the 10th in a series of annual studies measuring the enabling conditions that affect women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. To present a more complete picture of the global environment that enables women’s socioeconomic participation, this year Women, Business and the Law introduces two new indicators—Safety and Childcare—and presents findings on the implementation gap between laws (de jure) and how they function in practice (de facto). This study presents three indexes: (1) legal frameworks, (2) supportive frameworks (policies, institutions, services, data, budget, and access to justice), and (3) expert opinions on women’s rights in practice in the areas measured. The study’s 10 indicators—Safety, Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Childcare, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension—are structured around the different stages of a woman’s working life. Findings from this new research can inform policy discussions to ensure women’s full and equal participation in the economy. The indicators build evidence of the critical relationship between legal gender equality and women’s employment and entrepreneurship. Data in Women, Business and the Law 2024 are current as of October 1, 2023.
  • Publication
    Commodity Markets Outlook, October 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-29) World Bank
    Commodity prices are expected to decrease by 5 percent in 2025 and 2 percent in 2026. The projected declines are led by oil prices but tempered by price increases for natural gas and a stable outlook for metals and agricultural raw materials. The possibility of escalating conflict in the Middle East represents a substantial near-term upside risk to energy prices, with potential knock-on consequences for other commodities. However, over the forecast horizon, longer-term dynamics—including decelerating global oil demand, diversifying oil production, and ample oil supply capacity—suggest sizable downside risks to oil prices, especially if OPEC+ unwinds its latest production cuts. There are also dual risks to industrial commodity demand stemming from economic activity. On the one hand, concerted stimulus in China and above-trend growth in the United States could push commodity prices higher. On the other, weaker-than-anticipated global industrial activity could dampen them. Following several overlapping global shocks in the early 2020s, which drove parallel swings in commodity prices, commodity markets appear to be departing from a period of tight synchronization. A Special Focus analyzes commodity price synchronization over time and considers the relative importance across commodity cycles of a wide range of demand and supply shocks, including global demand shocks and shocks specific to different commodity markets. It concludes that, while supply shocks were the dominant commodity price driver in the early 2000s and around the global financial crisis, post-pandemic price movements have been more substantially shaped by commodity-specific shocks, such as those related to conflicts.
  • Publication
    Greater Heights
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-12) Iacovone, Leonardo; Izvorski, Ivailo; Kostopoulos, Christos; Lokshin, Michael M.; Record, Richard; Torre, Iván; Doczi, Szilvia
    Twenty-seven countries have reached high-income status since 1990. Ten of these are in the Europe and Central Asia region and have joined the European Union. Another 20 in the region have become more prosperous since the 1990s. However, their transition to high-income status has been delayed. These middle-income countries have found that the prospects for growth to high-income status have become even more difficult since the 2007–09 global financial crisis. This reflects partly a slowdown in structural reforms at home and partly the challenges associated with a deterioration in the global environment. The concern has emerged that many countries in the region may be caught in the middle-income trap, a phase in development characterized by a recurring deceleration in growth and by per capita incomes that are systematically below the high-income threshold. To ensure that these countries overcome the obstacles to growth and achieve progress toward high-income status, policy makers need to make the transition from a strategy driven largely by investment to a strategy that is supported by the importation and diffusion of global capital, knowledge, and technology and then to a strategy that complements these with innovation. The report Greater Heights: Growing to High Income in Europe and Central Asia relies on the 3i strategy described in World Development Report 2024—investment, infusion, and innovation—to propose policy options to assist middle-income countries in Europe and Central Asia in the effort to reach high-income status. Drawing on comprehensive empirical analysis, the report offers actionable recommendations that will enable policy makers to advance stronger economic growth across the region. Such a transition will require continued and sustained foundational reform to maximize the drivers of economic growth while pivoting to new transformative reforms to promote the development of more complex economic structures and institutions. These involve the need to discipline incumbents, boost the role of the private sector, strengthen the competitive environment, and reward merit. The emphasis on a strategy driven by innovation is also critically important for those countries that have already attained high-income status.
  • Publication
    Global Economic Prospects, January 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16) World Bank
    Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.
  • Publication
    World Bank Annual Report 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25) World Bank
    This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.