People Crunch ~ Global Migration & Depression...

The Economist spotlights global migration and the downturn in an article titled The People Crunch. As I've written about before, migrants are among our most vulnerable and yet precious compatriots. The Economist rightly acknowledges the...

"...migrants’ growing woes all over the world. Rates of migration soared in recent decades as the likes of Britain and America enjoyed rapid economic growth and sucked in labour. Around 200m people now live outside their homelands, some 3% of the global population. The proportion of foreign-born people in many Western countries has surged well above 10%: this includes Greece and Ireland, from where emigrants used to leave. Spain, where a construction boom helped to create a third of all new jobs in Europe in recent years, sucked in 4m foreigners (especially from Bulgaria and Romania in the EU, plus Ecuador and other bits of the former empire) between 2000 and 2007. As economies turn, migrants suffer. Many industries where they predominate (tourism in Ireland, financial services in Britain, construction in America and Spain) have shed jobs fast."

Let's celebrate and support our migrant brethren as they deal with these extraordinarily challenging times.