Arguably, most of the countries in the world are experiencing the migration spring. Individuals migrate for various reasons, this reasons included labor, war, economic crisis, and business. Migrations have different types of impacts, which include political, economical, and social. As a matter of fact, GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council) are unique in different ways, but above all they have one most striking aspect, this is their enormous stock of migrant population comprising approximately half of the entire regions population. GCC countries include Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. These nations are all rich in the production of oil.
Actually, for decades the GCC have experienced tremendous migration into its countries. In most cases it is the worker migration, this migration have had many impacts into the GCC nations. The impacts of migration are negative and positively, furthermore, it can also be long term or short term depending on the intensity of population.
Migration of people to GCC countries and Europe has asserted a lot of pressure to the policy makers. As a matter of fact, demographic issues have led to economic, political, and social issues. Migration has led to population increase in the region; hence the nationals have completely been crowded-out from employment in the private sector (Momani, 2007).
According to many scholars, the influx of population in the GCC and European nations dilutes the indigenous way of life. In most cases the erosion of the original culture affects the economic sector in terms of consumption. The economy too is affected by the insecurity that is brought about by the migrants.
Another impact of migration is that it has the influx of population led to improvement of infrastructure, industries, agricultural sector, power station, and government al buildings way (Kapiszewski, 2001). Due to the boom in the oil exports, GCC countries decided to diversify so as to increase revenue and be prepared incase the price of oil reduced. However, these development projects required extensive labor force which was not available in the GCC nations.
The continued preponderance of foreign labor and population, has forced the GCC nations to come up with numerous policies to manage and regulate population. This was caused by the increase in the level of unemployment among the indigenous people in GCC states. The influx of individuals to this nation was inversely proportional to the employment (International Organization for Migration, 2006). Hence increasing unemployment rate, the level of unemployment has a negative impact in the economy.
International migration has led to national building, the immigration policies in the GCC nations is a function and strategy in the labor market. Migration in most ends up with the immigrants becoming the nationalists of the host country. Economically, the increase of population in this nations, has led to increase of consumption (International Organization for Migration, 2006). The steady and continues increase of Population due to migration, led to an increase in foreign laborers. Actually, labor migration policies allowed the employers in the private sector to determine the employment conditions and salaries. This scenario led to mistreatment and underpayment of laborers.
Certainly, migration cause employment catastrophe. The nationals of GCC states complained of losing their jobs to migrants. The authorities in this nation tried to eliminate the catastrophe by replacing foreigners by nationalist; this was not a viable way (Kapiszewski, 2001). They shifted the labor force policies from foreign labor dependence to creating numerous job opportunities to the nationalists in the private sectors. This has helped in economic diversification as well as decreasing the level of unemployment among the nationalists.
Certainly, despite the negative impacts caused by migration, the need for laborers from foreign countries will still continue. The developments in the GCC nations economically, socially, and politically are well attributed to the foreigners labor force. In fact merchants, property owners, powerful officials, as well as economic welfare in the GCC region, depend on presence of immigrant communities.
References
International Organization for Migration. (2006). World Migration 2005 Costs and Benefits of
International Migration. New Delhi: Academic Foundation
Kapiszewski, A. (2001). National and Expatriates. Population and Labour Dillemas of the GCC
states. Reading: Ithaca Press.
Momani, B. (2007). “The EU the Middle East, and Regional Integration,” World Economics. Vol. 8. No. 1.
