ABSTRACT
An International Labour Organization (ILO) presentation by Patrick Taran in 2009 stated that migrants are often ‘the last hired and the fi rst fi red’ (Taran 2009: 1). The global economic crisis has in many regions of the world created a setting where this has turned out to be true for an increasing number of migrant workers. In the Gulf, hundreds of thousands of Indian migrants who came to work there in the construction sector on temporary labour contracts have felt the consequences of the economic downturn. Dubai has especially been severely hit, since it is the region’s key fi nancial centre. Furthermore, unlike other emirates and Gulf states, Dubai does not possess any oil reserves. In South-East Asia, Singapore and Malaysia are important destinations for low-and unskilled Indian labour migrants and here retrenchments are also followed by return migration.
