A recently released study highlighted how for millions of workers, migration remains a route to a better life, even when the journey comes with its own risks. But better earnings do not always mean greater security.
From workers facing danger in Kashmir and climate disasters in Nepal to trafficking through overseas job offers, tighter immigration rules and gaps in welfare protection, this month’s developments show how the search for work is reshaping where and how people move and the vulnerabilities they carry with them.
A new UNFPA-supported South India Interstate Migration Survey finds that migration has improved the lives of many workers who move across states in search of better livelihoods.
Nearly 72% of migrant workers surveyed across Keralam, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka said migration had improved their standard of living. Yet the same workers reported significant insecurity at their destinations, the Times of India reported.
The 1,824-worker survey found that low wages, lack of jobs, irregular employment, poverty and debt were among the main reasons people left their places of origin. More than 86% did not have a signed employment contract, while the average monthly wage was 17,640 rupees and the average working day was nearly 10 hours. Women earned about 3,313 rupees less per month than men.
For many, migration appears to work economically: 57% said they intended to continue working in their destination state. But portability of welfare remains a major gap. More than 73% reported difficulties accessing welfare and 69% faced problems accessing healthcare. Only about one in five said they could easily access welfare benefits after moving between states.
The Times of India report quotes Andrea M. Wojnar, UNFPA India Representative and Country Director for Bhutan, as saying that the study “provides a clear roadmap for stakeholders to turn data into targeted action” by highlighting gaps in welfare portability, healthcare access and workplace protections.
Another report by The Times of India based on the same survey, also reported how workers from Assam and other northeastern states, including Manipur and Meghalaya, make up a significant part of the hospitality workforce in Ernakulam. Employers often provide accommodation, and repeat migration to Kerala is high.
Nearly 92.2% of the interstate migrant workers surveyed in South India originated from just six northern and eastern states: West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. West Bengal-Bengaluru is the largest interstate corridor, followed by Bihar-Tiruppur and Odisha-Tiruppur.
A recent report by South China Morning Post, highlights how every spring around half a million migrant workers travel to Kashmir in search of work for work and better wages, which are roughly twice what they earn at home.
But recent attacks by militants have put their lives at risk.
The report profiled workers like Sarwar, a native of Bihar, who was quoted as saying, “Kashmir is real paradise. I will keep coming every year for as long as I have the strength to work.”
He earns 1200 rupees working as a mason as compared to 700 rupees in Bihar for the same work, if he could find any at all.
The report, citing local media reports, stated that since 2019, at least 24 migrant workers have been killed in militant attacks across the territory. More than 1500 people were killed in the same period, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 219 of them civilians.
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION CONUNDRUM
Australia will no longer let international students and graduate visa holders bring their families into the country, under stricter migration rules that Tony Burke, Australia’s home affairs minister, announced on September 17, as reported by The Times of India.
A Hindustan Times report stated that Indians make up nearly 10.7% of Australia’s overseas-born population and are expected to be the hardest hit by the new rules. Data from Australia’s Department of Home Affairs show the Indian-born population more than doubled between 2014 and 2024, from 411,240 to 916,300. Its median age is 35.8, which is 2.5 years below that of the general population.
Australian media also highlighted how immigration is becoming a fractious debate in Australia.
Alan Gamlen, director of the Australian National University’s Migration Hub, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the “debate stems from misinformation that rising migration caused the housing crisis and that migrants are stealing jobs or lazing around on benefits”.
“We’re talking about net overseas migration (NOM), which is an abstract figure: arrivals minus departures that nobody really understands,” he said.
In Germany, meanwhile, the September 6 state election in Saxony-Anhalt saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) win 44.5% of the vote. A Scroll report examining Indian migrants’ responses found that some saw the party’s anti-immigration politics largely as a threat to Muslims rather than to themselves.
The report argues that this perception may overlook the broader implications of the party’s opposition to immigration and diversity.
Excerpt :
The belief that Hindu Indians are safe from the AfD rests on a narrow reading of what the party actually opposes. Islamophobia is a real and central part of AfD politics, but it sits inside a bigger project: a vision of Germany as ethnically and culturally German first, with everyone else treated as a guest whose welcome can be withdrawn.
There is also a simpler, material danger. Skilled migration policy is not immune to the politics around it. A party that gains power on an anti-immigration platform tends to tighten rules for everyone eventually, including the visa categories, family reunification rights and long-term residency paths that Indian professionals in Germany depend on. Feeling exempt today does not guarantee exemption tomorrow.
However, some Indian migrants already understand that solidarity with other targeted communities, rather than distance from them, is what will bring. The AfD’s rise is a warning for everyone it excludes. Indian migrants who think it does not include them may simply not have been counted yet.
At the same time, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has warned of what it called a “dangerous trend” of trafficking through overseas recruitment scams. According to the ministry’s advisory to states and Union Territories, people are being lured with promises of well-paid jobs abroad and subsequently trapped in cyber-fraud centres.
The New Indian Express reported that the ministry has asked states to strengthen Anti-Human Trafficking Units and coordinate with police, cyber cells, labour authorities and local administrations. It has also called for closer monitoring of social media and job portals and verification of recruitment agencies before overseas job advertisements are published.
CALAMITIES CLAIM LIVES
On August 26, flash floods devastated Syafrubesi, a market town near Nepal’s border with Tibet. Among those caught in the disaster were Indian migrant workers from Bihar who had spent years building homes, hotels and interiors in the town.
An Al Jazeera report traced the lives of workers – Neyaz Miya and Mehadi Hassan, who had travelled from Bettiah in Bihar to Nepal for construction work. Miya and Hassan survived by running uphill. Three of their close friends and colleagues did not.
The workers had helped build the very hotels and homes that were swept away by the floods. “The town was gone in a blink,” Miya told Al Jazeera.
Another report from Assam by Guwahati Times stated that eight migrant workers from Assam stranded in flood-hit Nepal were safely evacuated and returned to Dhubri, while five others remained missing as efforts continue to trace them.
The Migration Story has been reporting on the impact of the Nepal devastation on families in India, living several hundred kilometers away but their livelihoods linked to migration to the neighbouring Himalayan nation.
In this story from Uttar Pradesh, The Migration Story looked at how families awaited news of their loved ones days after the catastrophe, and this video explainer looked at the long history of movement of people along the 1,715 km-long India-Nepal border and how the dual prospect of better earnings and proximity to home draws tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers to Nepal.
CRIME AND BLAME
In Goa, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant told the state Assembly that more than 90% of crimes in the state were committed by migrants. He made the claim while responding to questions about law and order and the presence of migrant workers in the state, Indian Express reported.
Sawant had made a similar claim in 2023, when he specifically referred to migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the report added.
The report quoted him as saying, “First and among the foremost things that the police department has done is verification of labourers and tenants. No one should rent out their homes to unknown persons, without having their backgrounds verified by the police.”
Migration Bulletin is a monthly round-up of some of the key developments related to migration reported across media platforms.
