ABSTRACT
How do firms in Gulf countries recruit low-skilled labour from India? What are the steps in the recruitment process? While a substantial body of research exists across different economic, political and cultural dimensions assessing India-Gulf migration, there has been little research to track the processes of recruitment and the steps involved in migrating from India to the Gulf (International Labour Organization, 2009). Each year thousands of Indians emigrate to Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) as contracted workers. In 2013 the number of lowskilled Indian migrants acquiring emigration clearance to work in the Gulf was 805,000 – up from 641,000 in 2010 and 466,456 in 2003 (MOIA, 2008, 2014). These migrants were individually recruited by registered recruitment agencies in India and gained work clearance in the Gulf.1 The overall stock of Indian migrants currently residing in the Gulf is unknown, but official estimates suggest that there are approximately 6 million migrants living in GCC countries (MOIA, 2012; Kohli, 2014).2
