Impact of COVID-19 on Nepal's Labour Migration

ABSTRACT

For many years, Nepal has relied on the import of labour by foreign countries to sustain its economy with income from remittances having approached 30% of the national gross domestic product for close to a decade. Besides being the most valuable source of hard currency, earnings by labour migrants have also contributed to reducing poverty levels drastically in recent years while also providing the impetus for rapid urbanization and rising consumerism. All of that has now been put in jeopardy as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic that has led to tens of thousands of Nepali workers being laid off in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the major destination for Nepalis in foreign employment. This chapter explores how the pandemic has affected the foreign employment sector with a particular focus on the number of Nepalis returning home, how the government plans to deal with a large number of unemployed young men and women, the expected reduction in remittances, and the possible social dislocations as a result of sudden loss of inflow of cash in the rural hinterlands of the economy. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.