Migrant Day Laborers

With the decline of the formal economy, especially since the 2008–2010 global economic crisis in the competitive global labor market, the health risks engendered by the rapid growth in migrant day labor have become a central occupational health problem. Migrant day labor can be defined as a type of work in the informal sector that holds no guarantee of future work and employs mainly recently arrived immigrants. In the search for better jobs and higher wages, immigrant workers have traditionally migrated from poor to rich countries primarily in Europe, Asia, and North America. During the past three decades, immigrants have filled day labor work positions and particularly migrant day laborers have constituted a large portion of their host country economy as agricultural, construction, manufacturing, and domestic-service workers. They create jobs and greatly boost the economy by producing cheap farm products and home goods. Nonetheless, migrant day laborers suffer from very low wages and...