The Asian Development Bank (ADB) urged Southeast Asian countries on Thursday to craft and strengthen policies promoting skilled labor mobility and migration in the region to encourage the free flow of labor and attract nationals back to their home countries.

While the ASEAN continuously pushes to achieve its vision of establishing a globally-competitive region, addressing intra-regional labor mobility remains a problem, it said.

According to statistics, ASEAN migrants grew fourfold from 2.1 million in 1995 to 9.9 million 2016 due to greater movement of people in the region. However, as migration substantially grew, major patterns of intra-ASEAN labor mobility have not changed.

In a study titled “Skilled Labor Mobility and Migration,” ADB economists recommended introducing policies and programs that encourage movement across a wide range of skills to maximize efficiency in sharing talents.

Since ASEAN remains a net exporter of human capital with around 60 to 70 percent, the study also urged lawmakers to collectively introduce measures to attract their skilled workers back to the region, on top of the existing policies each country implements to encourage their nationals back home.

In the Philippines alone, the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) stood at 2.3 million during April to September 2018 period with CALABARZON reporting the biggest share of OFW at 17.9 percent followed by Central Luzon with 14.4 percent.

“In the context of labor mobility, the wage differentials tend to dictate the direction and the volume. Thus, government officials and stakeholders are encouraged to develop jobs with better wage premium to attract workers at all skill levels from the region and beyond,” the ADB said.

According to the study, workers with regional qualifications can be given priority in processing job applications in industry that mutually benefits source and destination economies.

Further, it proposed to establish and maintain a labor migration information system that collects data to help both governments and citizens make better informed decisions.

Lack of data hinders researchers from answer key question such as labor market projections and estimating the gains and losses from labor mobility for ASEAN and its members.

“The ASEAN Economic Community and its members have successfully achieved tight-knit trade linkages which contributed to rapid growth and economic success in the region. The time is ripe for members to gain from promoting the cross-border mobility of talented people in the region,” the study said.