TRIANGLE in ASEAN

Seventh technical Meeting of Focal Points on International Labour Migration Statistics in ASEAN

The International Labour Organization (ILO) organizes the Seventh Technical Meeting of Focal Specialists on International Labour Migration Statistics in ASEAN on 22 and 23 September 2021. The meeting is supported by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) through the ILO's TRIANGLE in ASEAN programme.

Background and rationale

The International Labour Migration Statistics (ILMS) Database in ASEAN has been published annually since December 2014 as a special collection on the ILO’s central database, ILOSTAT, as well as through the AP-Migration web-portal. In validating, annotating and gathering together the information from the relevant surveys and administrative records produced in ten ASEAN Member States (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam), ILMS Database in ASEAN fills an important knowledge gap for national and regional policy-makers and for the broader research community. The eighth round of data collection for the ILMS Database in ASEAN was successfully completed in 2020, and data has been published on the ILOSTAT portal.

The ILMS database was initially created in 1998 by ILOSTAT, EUROSTAT, UNSD and UNECE, and regularly updated to include data from 94 countries until 2006. The ILO’s ASEAN TRIANGLE reinvigorated the ILMS database for ASEAN in 2012 and has since then continuously highlighted the strategic importance of labour migration statistics in the region and beyond. In July 2018, ILO Statistical Department’s (STATISTICS) decided to restart collection of ILMS at global level. Reinvigoration of the ILMS database at global level is important both for SDG monitoring, national planning, and global evidence base on labour migration. The 2020 round of ILMS collection, which is the 8th round of collection in the ASEAN region, was launched by ILOSTAT in September 2020. The 9th round of collection in the ASEAN region will be launched in September 2020. Statistics from official sources, mainly labour force surveys, censuses and administrative datasets, are collected on International Labour Migration Questionnaires (ILMQ) developed by the ILO.

Collection of ILMS data in ASEAN is done annually with the help of a network of ILMS focal specialists in national institutions in all ten ASEAN Member States. This network of focal experts was established in 2013, and has since met in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020.

Objectives

Objectives of the seventh technical meeting of Focal Specialists on International Labour Migration Statistics in ASEAN are to:

1. Share and discuss global and regional updates on collection of labour migration statistics and global labour migration estimates;
2. Review current status of ILMS database in ASEAN;
3. Discuss sex-disaggregation of labour migration statistics in the region;
4. Discuss lessons learned from the 8th round of ILMS collection in ASEAN, and identify ways to further improve data collection and sharing among ASEAN Member States;
5. Discuss next steps in improving quality and data sources at country level; and
6. Prepare for the 9th round of ILMS data collection.

Participants

The Meeting will bring together representatives from national governments, the ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN Statistics, and ILO. Member states’ participants will ideally be the designated Focal Points from each country, including one or both of the Ministry of Labour and other Ministries responsible for data collection (e.g. National Statistical Office, Office of Immigration, etc.).