Social protection for migrant workers: A necessary response to the Covid-19 crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic represented a major public health challenge and had serious economic and social impacts on origin, transit and destination countries, as well as on migrant workers and their families and on businesses and their operations. This informative note presents policy options in order to ensure comprehensive social protection for migrant workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

It provides examples from different countries on access to healthcare, facilitating access to social protection schemes, adequate information, providing income support through cash transfers and other means, as well as medium to long-term policy responses options.

For instance, in Ireland, Italy and New Zealand, support packages to address the impact of the pandemic were delivered to migrant workers. The Philippines also supported the livelihoods of more than 320,000 Filipino workers abroad by providing one-time cash assistance of US$200.

https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---soc_sec/documents/publication/wcms_748979.pdf 

GFMD Focused Input to the 2021 HLPF  

ILO