ABSTRACT
The financial crisis had its origins in the United States (US) in 2008, spread to Europe, and then to Japan. The effect of the crisis has been slow to manifest in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. GCC countries are: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. The unravelling of the impact of the crisis on output and employment in the US had generated an anticipation of large-scale retrenchment of expatriate labourers in the Gulf region. Return emigrant survey was conducted among the emigrants who lost their jobs and were forced to return home because of the financial crisis in the Gulf. Return migration from the Gulf is the normal process of contract migration. All agencies working on migration and remittances in the South Asian countries and the Gulf region predicted an exodus of return emigrants from the Gulf to their countries of origin following the crisis.
