A foreign worker (cf expatriate), is a person who works in a country other than the one of which he or she is a citizen. An expatriate (in abbreviated form expat) is someone temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of their upbringing and/or legal residence. ... The word citizen may refer to: A person with a citizenship Citizen Watch Co. ...

The term, in its broadest sense, may cover a multitude of cases. Most commonly, it refers to economic migrants, who typically travel (either legally or illegally) to a country with better job prospects than the one in which they hold citizenship. Those that are legal may be either full-fledged immigrants or may be in the host country on a conditional work permit. Sometimes the host country sets up a real advertising program in order to invite foreign workers, as did the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s, when over one million of so-called guest workers (Gastarbeiter) were attracted, mostly from Italy, Spain or Turkey. An economic migrant is a person who voluntarily leaves his or her country of origin for economic reasons. ...

Current estimates of the total number of international migrant workers stand at about 25 million, with a comparable number of dependents accompanying them. About 10 million of these, including 4 or 5 million illegal immigrants are working in the United States, which draws most of its immigrants from Mexico. Northwestern Europe has about 5 million migrant workers. Illegal immigration is the act of moving to or settling in another country or region, temporarily or permanently, in violation of the law or without documents permitting an immigrant to settle in that country. ...

The term can also include international experts working out-of-country (usually, but not always, legally) and any number of cases in between. For example, in recent years in the USA there has been much controversy over whether H-1B visas, intended to bring highly skilled workers to fill gaps in the domestic labor pool, are instead being used to bring in skilled, but otherwise unexceptional, economic migrants as cheap labor to fill jobs that could readily be filled domestically. The neutrality of this article is disputed. ...

On the other hand, less developed countries like India, Pakistan, and the Philippines have long experienced a brain drain of highly skilled workers to developed countries like the United States, Canada, Britain, and Australia. While the absolute number of such emigres are not large, the economic implications of such very skilled workers is significant. Over the past 8 years, the number of foreign workers in western nations has incresased dramatically, leaving world leaders to consider how best to manage the influx of migrants leaving third world nations. A developing country is a country with low average income compared to the world average. ... A brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals (human capital) for other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflict or lack of opportunity or health hazards where they are living. ... A developed country is a country that has achieved (currently or historically) a high degree of industrialization, and which enjoys the higher standards of living which wealth and technology make possible. ...

See also

• Immigration
• Foreign Worker Visa
• Labor shortage

The Foreign Worker Visa is an immigration document allowing a foreign national to temporarily immigrate to a country for purposes of employment. ... A condition whereby there are not enough qualified candidates (employees) to fill needed jobs. ...

References

Knox, Paul; Agnew, John; McCarthy, Linda (2003). The Geography of the World Economy (4th ed.). London: Hodder Arnold. ISBN 0-340-80712-1.