Zimbabwe, remittances, etc; was USA...

rc-am rcollins at netlink.com.au
Mon May 1 20:26:55 PDT 2000


Speaking of remittances and so on, does anyone know what proportion of farm workers in Zimbabwe are migrant workers and from where?

Angela _________


>
>
> "W. Kiernan" wrote:
>
> > No, they are so poor. They're not stupid or deluded, they've come here
> > for the cold hard cash. People come from East Asia, and Mexico and
> > Haiti and Cuba, to the U.S.A., because in the U.S.A. they can make a
> > whole lot more money and have a whole lot more material goods than in
> > their native countries. You see the same thing in the Middle East,
> > where "guest workers" from poor countries sell themselves into virtual
> > slavery in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, because the pay is comparitively so
> > high.
>
> Most immigrants from the south including the 'illegal' variety want to
> earn the cold US cash to support their families back home. The US dollar
> goes a long way in places Mexico, DPRK, Haiti or Central America. One
> person
> earning $8 an hour working 30-60 hours a week can support a
> whole family back home. Many of the immigrants (mostly the illegal ones)
> only work and reside in the US seasonally spending the other months in
> their native countries. Dollar remittances from abroad are the single
> largest component of FX in most of the smaller countries and are
> significant
> in larger more prosperous (relatively) countries like Mexico. Most of
> the FX in DPRK comes from Koreans working in Japan. I've met people in
> some of these countries were family members all pitch in to send someone
> to the US where dollars are earned and sent home.
>
> Sam Pawlett
>



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