Labor Mobility in ASEAN: Current Commitments and Future Limitations

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By: Alexander Chipman Koty asean-labor

With the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) at the end of 2015, ASEAN achieved a significant milestone in the region’s growing political, economic, and cultural integration. As set out in 2007’s ASEAN Economic Blueprint, the AEC seeks to “transform ASEAN into a region with free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labour, and freer flow of capital.” While considerable progress has been made in liberalizing and normalizing the region’s standards in most of these areas, establishing the free movement of skilled labor lags appreciably behind.

Although ASEAN has clearly stated its goal to promote skilled labor mobility, current policies not only trail the European Union, where freedom of movement is essentially unencumbered, but also less ambitious regional trade agreements such as the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The lack of a cohesive regional framework, nationalist and protectionist policies, and middling political will impede ASEAN’s skilled labor mobility. However, employers can still take advantage of policies that facilitate the hiring of skilled workers in certain sectors to address the frequent skilled labor shortages found within ASEAN countries.

The Best of Scandinavia: A Personal Account

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scandinavian

In a fast changing world, business leaders are at the forefront of strategies and transformations. That is why the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), a government agency responsible for the major part of Sweden’s development cooperation, conducts programmes which aim to enhance managerial and leadership skills and cover subjects of strategic importance to economic and social development.

I happened to be one of the 25 selected participants (and the only Filipino) coming from Asian and European countries for the SIDA-sponsored Advanced International Training Programme in Strategic Business Management. The programme is designed for top managers and / or directors of middle-sized companies. It is about promoting sustainable growth and development of the participants’ managed or owned company, the business community, society, and individuals by developing effective innovation systems. The overall objective of the training programme is to contribute to the renewal and the development through management change in the participant’s home countries. The countries represented included, Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, China, Georgia, India, Kosovo, Philippines, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and West Bank & Gaza. [Read more…]