I'm looking for recent (macro) trends in worldwide immigration
(immigration from undeveloped countries to developed nations).  Is it
picking up or dropping off?  What are the specific worldwide/aggregate
numbers here.  What are the growth projections. Is there an increase
in skilled vs. unskilled?  Are there any legislative moves in
developing countries to attract or repel immigrants?  I'm trying to
understand this as a driver to the growth of remittance services (like
western union) but am not specifically looking for information on the
money sending market- More the trends behind it.

---

Request for Question Clarification by easterangel-ga on 19 Mar 2003 16:56 PST

Hi!  Would an answer comprised only of statistics of numbers of
migrant workers per country be enough as a legitimate answer to this
question? I can provide such numbers but not projections or forecasts.
Just let me know. :)

Apparently there are problems with giving you even an approximate
answer such as 300 million humans imigrated to another country in 2002
up slightly from 2000 and 2001. Do they count again if they imigrate
back to the former country in a year or two? Perhaps half are illegal
immigrants. Do they count twice if they are deported. Do you count
them as immigrated if they overstay the time limit on their visa?
Clearly we can only estimate the number of illegal immigrants. Is a
move to a posession of the mother country or the reverse concidered
immigration? Varrious agencies even in the same country use different
criteria, so it is like adding bananas to grapes to try to give you
the total number of friut exported.   Neil