Low-skilled migrant workers often pay high fees to work abroad, which reduces the remittances they can send to their families and is regressive because low-skilled workers pay more than high-skilled workers. No one knows exactly how much workers pay, justifying more data on this in order to reduce worker-paid costs. Media exposés of workers who paid a year’s foreign earnings to get a two-year contract may leave the impression that all workers pay such high fees, although the data collected from workers in diverse corridors do not support such a conclusion. Since the number of low-skilled workers often exceeds the number of jobs, worker willingness to pay can be a way of allocating scarce jobs among workers, although government efforts to limit what workers pay can drive payments underground.
