Shoring Up Economic Refugees : Venezuelan Migrants in the Ecuadoran Labor Market
Ecuador became the third largest receiver of the 4.3 million Venezuelans who left their country in the last five years, hosting around 10 percent of them. Little is known about the characteristics of these migrants and their labor market outcomes....
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/354821595510754331/Shoring-Up-Economic-Refugees-Venezuelan-Migrants-in-the-Ecuadoran-Labor-Market http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34250 |
| Summary: | Ecuador became the third largest
receiver of the 4.3 million Venezuelans who left their
country in the last five years, hosting around 10 percent of
them. Little is known about the characteristics of these
migrants and their labor market outcomes. This paper fills
this gap by analyzing a new large survey (EPEC). On average,
Venezuelan workers are highly skilled and have high rates of
employment, compared with Ecuadorans. However, their
employment is of much lower quality, characterized by low
wages and high rates of informality and temporality.
Venezuelans have experienced significant occupational
downgrading, relative to their employment prior to
emigration. As a result, despite their high educational
attainment, Venezuelans primarily compete for jobs with the
least skilled and more economically vulnerable Ecuadoran
workers. Our simulations suggest that measures that allow
Venezuelans to obtain employment that matches their skills,
such as facilitating the conversion of education
credentials, would increase Ecuador's GDP between 1.6
and 1.9 percent and alleviate the pressure on disadvantaged
native workers. We also show that providing work permits to
Venezuelan workers would substantially reduce their rates of
informality and increase their average earnings. |
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