No Gulf Crisis in Kerala

According to a study, 37,000 Kerala emigrants lost their jobs due to global recession between 2008 and 2009.

According to a study by the Centre of Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, 37,000 Kerala emigrants lost their jobs due to global recession between 2008 and 2009. Undertaken at the request of the Kerala Government’s Department of Non-Resident Keralite Affairs, the report titled ‘The Impact of Global Recession on Migration and Remittances in Kerala: New Evidences from the Return Migration Survey 2009’ states that the United Arab Emirates accounted for more than half (53 per cent) of all unemployed emigrants in the Gulf, followed by Saudi Arabia (14 per cent), Kuwait (6 per cent), Oman and Bahrain (4 per cent each). The study also found that most of the unemployed emigrants were males, though the unemployment ratio was higher among females.

The study compared the number of unemployed emigrants in 2009 with that in 2008, just before the recession. The 37,000 figure, the study stated, was insignificant given that the total number of Kerala emigrants in 2008 was 2.2 million, of whom 431,ooo were unemployed before they left Kerala. So, while the recession had increased unemployment among them, the numbers were much smaller when compared to the unemployment figures of emigrants before they left Kerala for the Gulf.

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