Topical:
Earlier this month, the European Commission published proposals to levy penalties against businesses in the European Union that engage in employing illegal migrants. The Justice Commissioner, Franco Frattini, cited an estimate that 7% to 16% of the European Unions gross domestic product is conducted 'off the books.'
Japan has a long history of keeping a tight lid on immigration. Unlike many other countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, or Australia, there is no official immigration policy. In Japanese society, the subject is almost taboo.
A new study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), authored by Deborah Reed and Hans Johnson, suggests that in the future, California will not have enough skilled workers to meet the demand of its economy. Home to Silicon Valley, California has long been known for a concentration of high-technology industries in the United States.
The deputy head of Russia's Federal Migration Service, Vyacheslav Postavnin has stated that over 800,000 work permits have been issued to labor migrants in 2007.
"In January - April, the number of work permits issued in Moscow quadrupled, as compared with that of the whole last year. A total of 600,000 work permits were issued all over Russia in 2006," he said at a news conference on 22 May 2007.
Initial government statistics show that, in the first three months of this year, about 8,000 citizens of the two new EU accession States have come to the United Kingdom, applied for and been granted worker registration certificates and accession worker cards.
Ireland's President Mary McAleese is on a four-day tour of Latvia and Lithuania, two of the Baltic States where tens of thousands of immigrants to Ireland have originated from in recent years.
According to a press release from McAleese's office, the tour is "expected to strengthen political, economic, cultural and educational links between Ireland and the two [Baltic] countries."