MAKING WORKERS PAY: RECRUITMENT OF THE MIGRANT LABOR FORCE IN THE GULF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
2017
Building on more than three years of research in Bangladesh, the report documented for the first time the perverse practice of making the poorest workers pay to be recruited. The findings are based on interviews with workers, recruitment agents, travel agents, and clients, as well as documentary evidence provided by government officials and others. Just to get recruited, a rural worker from Bangladesh might end up paying as much as $5,200 in fees to a multi-tiered network of recruiters and sub-agents, when the actual cost of recruitment is only $400-$650. The report makes an argument for responsible recruitment practices, where major multinational companies bear the actual cost of recruiting the required workforce for large-scale construction projects that continue to boom in the Arabian Gulf region.
How Migrant Workers Literally Pay to Build Architecture, Fast Company
Migrant workers exploited en route to Arab Gulf, study finds, Associated Press