TPT July 2009

G lobal M arketplace

Indeed, a recent report from the CFI and the research group Technopak (based in Gurgaon) suggests a more immediate threat, as “most [Indian] industries struggle to achieve their growth targets because of a shortage of skilled labour.” It was noted that some companies have even begun hiring skilled blue-collar workers from abroad. The report recommends the creation of “skill councils” for different industries that would track data, set standards, and design training curricula. • Ms Lakshmi pointed out that India’s expected “demographic dividend” of a greatly expanded working-age population, while the envy of China and Japan, only intensifies the country’s skills-gap problem. In a report last year, the Finance Ministry warned that the growing workforce must develop marketable skills — and fast. Otherwise India could face a surplus of educated people and a shortage of qualified workers as labour requirements continue to shift from agriculture to industry. Even as immigration from Mexico drops 25%, the US steps up its effort to thwart illegal border crossings While an overqualified populace was becoming a worry-point in India, the US has grappled with a personnel problem of a very different sort: illegal entry into the country across the porous border with Mexico, for which smugglers reportedly command a fee of $3,000 to $5,000 per person. Ranging from harsh to ludicrous, efforts to stem the traffic have been strikingly ineffective. Now, to judge from census data from the Mexican government, it appears that a solution to the problem may have been quietly developing — for reasons that give scant satisfaction. The recently released data show that the number of Mexicans emigrating to other countries in the year through August 2008 declined 25% from the previous 12-month period. Almost all of this emigration, both legal and illegal, is to the United States. From Mexicali, capital of the Mexican state of Baja California and located some 40 miles from the border with the US, Julia Preston of the New York Times reported on the “extraordinary decline.” The Mexican-born population in the United States grew steeply year after year since the early 1990s — dipping briefly only after the World Trade Center attacks of 11 September 2001. According to Mexican and American researchers consulted by Ms Preston, the reversal of the trend is attributable largely to the current scarcity of jobs north of the border. She wrote, “The trend emerged clearly with the onset of the recession and, demographers say, provides new evidence that illegal immigrants from Mexico, by far the biggest source of unauthorised migration to the United States, are drawn by jobs and respond to a sinking labour market by staying away.” One of the Times ’ respondents is Jeffrey S Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. Mr Passel was even more emphatic. “If jobs are available, people come,” he said, “If jobs are not available, people don’t come.” (“Mexican Data Say Migration to US Has Plummeted,” 15 May) This is not a startling proposition but a piece of logic to which anyone would assent. The novelty is a tight job market as an instrument of immigration control, as demonstrated by a sharp decrease in illegal movement across the border.

“The signs of the drop-off are subtle but ubiquitous,” Ms Preston wrote from Mexicali. “Only two beds are filled in a shelter here that houses migrants hoping to sneak into the United States. On the American side, near Calexico, California, border patrol vans return empty to their base after agents comb the desert for illegal crossers.” • Mexicans account for 32% of immigrants in the US, and more than half of them lack legal status, the Pew Center has reported. What does the pending alteration in these demographics mean for the “virtual fence” along the border? Planning for this element of the Secure Border Initiative, launched in 2003 during the George W Bush administration, included the deployment of thousands of new border agents and the construction of hundreds of miles of physical walls. After years of delays and false starts, construction of the $6.7 billion virtual fence began in May. The first phase — a network of towers rigged with cameras, sensors, and communications equipment — will cover about 23 miles south of Tucson, Arizona. Within five years, American officials said, the fence is expected to extend along the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico except for some 200 miles in the area of Big Bend National Park in Texas, a stretch that is to be considered later. The Customs and Border Protection official heading the project said a section of the fence could be in operation by year’s end. Dorothy Fabian , Features Editor (USA)

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