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The global recession appeared to have bottomed out in summer 2009. However, the economic recovery is expected to be slow, and unemployment is expected to rise from about 180 million in 2008 to 240 million by the end of 2009.

The recession began in US financial and housing markets when housing prices began to fall. The net worth of US households doubled from 350 percent of gross disposable income in 2002 to 700 percent in 2006 and fell to 550 percent in 2008. Losses in US household wealth during 2008 were about $11 trillion, including $8.5 trillion in financial assets and $2.5 trillion in housing assets.

The US recession spread to other countries via trade? as US imports dropped, there were lay offs in Europe and Asia. Other countries with similar real estate bubbles fueled by low interest rates and speculative fever, as in Ireland, Spain, and Dubai, also imported less as unemployment rose.

Many of the economies hardest-hit by recession had been major migration magnets. Relatively few countries followed the example of Malaysia, canceling the work permits of Bangladeshi migrants scheduled to arrive and encouraging employers to lay off migrants in order to open up jobs for Malays.

Many labor-sending countries that were sending more workers abroad and receiving more remittances expected these upward trajectories to continue. Officials in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka expressed frustration that Korea and the Gulf states accepted fewer migrants in 2009. There were widespread but largely unrealized fears of discrimination and xenophobia against migrants as unemployment rose.

OECD. The OECD's 2009 International Migration Outlook report focused on Managing Labor Migration Beyond the Crisis. The preface called on migrant-receiving countries to remember that "with the onset of economic recovery?international labor migration flows are likely to rebound." It called for migration systems "that can respond efficiently to labor market needs, can reduce irregular migration and employment?or redirect it into legal channels?and can ensure better outcomes for new migrants and their children." (p9)

The preface asserts that "labor needs exist at all skill levels" (presumably in migrant-receiving countries) and "the failure to acknowledge this has contributed to?irregular migration and employment." (p10). Second, long-term labor needs cannot be filled with temporary migration, so governments must "plan in terms of long-term migration and effective integration." (p10). Third, "managing labor migration necessarily involves a greater role for national stakeholders, in particular employers ?and incentives for employers and migrants to follow the rules." (p10). Fourth, efforts to increase the development impacts of migration should be strengthened, and fifth, successful "labor market integration" is critical for migrants and their children.

Stocks of migrants in industrial countries are likely to decline in 2009 for the first time in a quarter century, reflecting both recession and government policies, such as reducing the "lists of occupations in shortage" and applying "employment tests ? more strictly." Some countries have introduced return bonuses, while others have continued to step-up enforcement against illegal migration.

The report says that there is a "structural demand" for migrants in industrial countries, concluding that with the onset of recovery international migration flows are likely to rebound. It lays out a "road map" to improve the management of labor migration that suggests better ways of identifying the "need" for migrants and managing their entry and employment.

The OECD notes that most of the net new jobs added in the UK and US between 1997 and 2007 were filled by foreign-born workers. In the UK, 75 percent of the net new jobs during this decade were filled by foreign-born workers; in the US, 58 percent were filled by foreign-born workers.

The OECD's Development Assistance Committee member countries contributed $120 billion in ODA in 2008. The leading ODA contributors were the US, $26 billion; Germany, $14 billion; the UK and France, $11 billion each; and Japan, $9 billion.

Asylum seekers filed 383,000 new applications in 51 industrial countries in 2008; over 10 percent of those filing asylum applications were Iraqis.

OECD. 2009. International Migration Outlook 2009. Paris. OECD.