International migration has jumped up the policy agenda in most OECD countries over the past decade. There are several reasons for this. First, immigration flows grew rapidly during the 1990s and are now growing again, using at times irregular or unconventional channels (asylum seeking, tourism overstaying). There are currently close to three million long-term immigrants entering OECD countries legally every year, and even more temporary movements, if international students are included (see Chapter 1). And this does not count unauthorised movements. Secondly, with ageing populations and falling interest in certain occupations in OECD countries (sciences, building trades), it is expected that there will be need for more worker immigration in the near future.

The first part of the current report International Migration Outlook is divided in three sections describing the principal developments observed this last three years. The first of these sections looks at changes in migration movements (I.A); the second focuses on the status of immigrants in the labour market (I.B), while the third provides an overview on migration policies (I.C).

The prospect of ageing populations in OECD countries and the appearance of skill shortages in certain occupations have brought the issue of a pro-active migration policy onto the government agenda in many countries. If indeed there will be a need for more foreign workers in the future, how are the migration movements to meet this need to be organised and managed?

Migrant remittances are a steadily growing external source of capital for developing countries. While foreign direct investments and capital market flows fell sharply in the last years due to the recession in the high income countries, migrant remittances continued to grow, reaching USD 149.4 billion in 2002. The importance of remittances in compensating the human capital loss of developing countries through migration and their potential in boosting economic growth was already recognised in the beginning of the 1980s. A wide range of issues related to remittances became the subject of political debate, as well as of more in-depth research. These topics include the determinants of remittances, the transfer channels used and their economic impact on the remittance receiving countries. Over the past years, partly because of the sharp increase in remittance flows, the research on these issues gained momentum, resulting in a mushrooming of scientific literature

Most of the data published in this annex are taken from the individual contributions of national correspondents appointed by the OECD Secretariat with the approval of the authorities of member countries. Consequently, these data have not necessarily been harmonised at international level. This network of correspondents, constituting the Continuous Reporting System on Migration (SOPEMI), covers most OECD member countries as well as the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Romania. SOPEMI has no authority to impose changes in data collection procedures. It has an observatory role which, by its very nature, has to use existing statistics. However, it does play an active role in suggesting what it considers to be essential improvements in data collection and makes every effort to present consistent and well-documented statistics.