A paper prepared for the Policy Analysis and Research Programme of the Global Commission on International Migration by

1 Executive summary This thematic paper for the Global Commission on International Migration examines current and projected trends in the supply of and demand for migrant workers. It reviews demographic trends, patterns of entry to and exit from the labor force, changes in technology, trade, aid and investment policies and their impacts on international migration patterns, and the role of migrants in the informal sector of the economies in which they work. We develop alternative global and regional labor market and migration scenarios and lay out the challenges and opportunities associated with each. Finally, the policy options available to deal with the various challenges and opportunities are reviewed, including the potential of bilateral and regional guest worker programs and global regimes such as GATS Mode 4 movements of natural persons to promote orderly and legal labor migration.1 An annex that reviews the relationship between government debt, development, and international migration has its own executive summary. The report reaches these major conclusions