The Money’s Not Coming Home: $690 Billion Remittance Risk
- Remittance flows from migrant workers will be hit by crisis
- Usually remittances are more reliable than investment flows
A boy uses a phone outside a shop on the outskirts of Islamabad on April 7.
Photographer: Farooq Naeem/AFP via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The amount of money migrant workers send to their home countries usually holds up well in a crisis. Not this time.
Waves of job losses among overseas workers and international border closures are sapping the $690 billion annual flow of global remittances at a time when many emerging economies need hard currency more than ever. Lebanon, Ukraine and the Philippines will be among the hardest hit, while Latin America could see an 18% drop in money being sent home compared with last year.