Beyond gratitude: lessons learned from migrants' contribution to the COVID-19 response

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a snapshot of migrant workers across countries and sectors, looking at the scale of their contribution to the global workforce before COVID-19. The analysis of the stories gathered in the media tracking and presented in the 'Key workers' data visualisation in Chapter 3. This focuses on migration-related reforms and initiatives by national and local governments over the past year in response to the pandemic. Recognising that the contributions of migrants will remain essential to our societies during our collective recovery from the pandemic, Chapter 4 presents conclusions and recommendations for policy-makers. These are based on the lessons that could inform more sustainable solutions for migration reform in the future.