Ministry of Commerce And Supplies - Enhanced Integrated ...

N T I S2010Availability and Quality of Labour Force: There is a large availability of workers for foreign employment.However, most of the labour force going abroad is of unskilled category. The lack of skills is partly due to lackof formal training and partly due to the lack of training facilities mainly at district level.Efficiency of Domestic Supporting Industries: According to industry sources, the efficiency of local agents(FCEs) and training centres is low.Business Environment: The general macro-economic environment, government’s administrative servicesand judicial services are reported to be problematic. There are more than 1,000 cases relating to foreignemployment pending in the Department of Labour and more than 300 cases in the Supreme Court. However,institutional cases are not more than 40.The labour export in Nepal is governed by the Labour Act 1992, Foreign Employment Act2007 and ForeignEmployment Regulations 2007, Immigration Act 1993 and Regulations 1995.Government Initiatives and Donor Involvement: The GoN has the policy of promoting foreign employment asthere is a lack of alternative opportunities in the country. International Labour Organization (ILO) and UnitedNations Development Programme (UNDP) are some of the donor agencies involved. Nepalese embassiesabroad have not been able to provide quality service due to a lack of resources. The government has, so far,entered into labour service agreements with six countries. Recently, the government is trying to form analliance between and among government, FECs, and NGO/INGOs for the development of this sector.Prospect for Domestic Supply Conditions: Prospect of integrating employment with other services liketraining, travel and health checkup at company level. However, district-level training and awareness are tobe taken by the government.Sending unskilled and semi-skilled manpower rather than unskilled at present, increasing training facilities,including languages of the source countries, and international marketing could have value addition.Index 4: Socio-economic ImpactMigration and Poverty Reduction: There is evidence that remittances had a significant impact on povertyreduction in Nepal in recent years. According to Khatri (2007), official data suggests that the poverty rate fellby 11 per cent due to migrant remittances. However, there is also some evidence that migrants rarely comefrom the poorest households, who might not even be able to find access to such opportunities (ILO, 2004).Current Employment and Job-Creation Prospect: With an estimated 1.5 million Nepalese working abroad, the‘sector’ is obviously creating a large number of jobs. In addition, it is estimated that there are around 25,000people working in FECs in Nepal.Gender Impact: Migration is predominantly by men. Only 4 per cent of those migrants using formal channelsin 2008/09 were female, and it is estimated that less than 10 per cent of all migrant workers (including thoseusing informal channels) are women. The GoN has put a ban on migration of women to countries in theMiddle East, mainly due to numerous reports of female workers--who usually work in private households--facing harassment and sexual abuse. Women who seek employment in those countries, therefore, have to gothrough informal channels. This explains why their share is much higher than their share in formal migration,but it remains low.The Foreign Employment Act 2007 has removed the need for women to have the permission of theirhusbands/parents to seek foreign employment, but there remain high social barriers for women to seekforeign employment.98NEPAL TRADE INTEGRATION STRATEGY 2010BACKGROUND REPORT