KOCHI: A vast majority of Keralites who returned home after losing jobs in the Gulf countries following the Covid outbreak feels “frustrated” over the inability to get a job in the home state, and wants to remigrate, according to a new study. Nearly 70% of the returnees from the West Asian countries remains jobless without any income, says the study, ‘Covid19 Pandemic and Exodus of Keralite Emigrant Workers from GCC Countries: Causes of Return, Activity Status of Returnees and Economic Impact’ by B A Prakash, former professor and head of the Department of Economics, University of Kerala.
The study conducted for the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, has also recommended bank loans, pension for those suffering from chronic diseases and change in ration card status from APL (above poverty line) to BPL (below poverty line) for the returnees to help them tide over the financial crisis.
“The returnees, who had regular jobs and earned monthly wages in GCC (West Asian countries) prior to their return, are frustrated about labour situation in Kerala. They believe that remigration is a better option than finding a job in their locality,” says the study.
“The returnees firmly believe that the labour market situation and the prospects of finding regular and remunerative jobs are bleak in Kerala,” it says. Due to their return the flow of remittances had stopped, shattering the finances of all the sample returnee households. The survey is from 404 return Keralite emigrant workers belonging to six grama panchayats and five municipalities in Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, and Pathanamthitta districts between July 2021 and November 2021. Of the total 306 wards in the eleven local bodies, sample returnees were selected from 102 wards, who came back to Kerala between December 2019 and July 2021.
Prakash told TNIE that around 77% of the total 14.71 lakh returnees had already gone back at the time of the survey. Nearly 70% of those remaining in the state want to reimigrate.“We have seen that those who returned from Saudi Arabia are stuck in Kerala. This is because of increasing fee for a resident permit, work permit, resident renewal fees etc due to that country’s policy of discouraging foreign workers,” he said. A major finding of the survey is the total number of emigrant Keralites is much higher than perceived earlier.
“According to our estimate, the total Keralite emigrants in GCC countries was in the range of 25-30% of the total Indian emigrants (95.68 lakh) in mid 2020. There were about 23.9 lakh Keralites in gulf countries and 28.7 lakh across the world. This is much higher than the figure arrived at by the Kerala Migration Survey by CDS, which estimated the total number of Kerala emigrants at 21 lakh in 2018.Out of the 404 returnee household, 398 (98%) have a debt. The major purpose of borrowing was house construction, purchase of vehicles and land, medical treatment, and education of children.