Workers of the world on the move

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From Filipino electricians in western Australia and Indian petrochemical engineers working in the Persian Gulf, to Latvian stone masons in Northern Ireland, the world's labour force is on the move.

Globalisation means that not only are companies are moving operations offshore to where there is cheaper labour - but workers are increasingly prepared to cross borders to find where the best jobs are.

Popular images of migrant workers are of the of the poor, the oppressed and unskilled. Yet according to Manpower, one of the world's largest recruitment companies, they are more likely to be young, under 30 years of age, well-educated with university or vocational qualifications, and female as much as male.

This matters to employers who, according to Manpower, will increasingly be competing for workers, such as the managers at Irish meat processing plants "whose skilled Slovak butchers are being lured away by competitors in Norway".

Unlike earlier migrations, today's migrant workers are not on a one-way trip. Flights home are readily available. Irish emigrants began returning a decade ago as the economy of the "Celtic Tiger" boomed. Now, it is Indian professionals and Polish construction workers who are returning to seek new opportunities.

Competition for such workers is increasing. Even oil-rich Gulf states can no longer rely on a seemingly endless flow of cheap engineers and construction workers from the Asian sub-continent. One Gulf company, for example, told Manpower it was "starting to miss crucial project deadlines" because it could not "import the skilled expatriate engineers and project managers it used to be able to get easily."

Propelling labour mobility over the next few decades will be huge demographic changes, in particular the ageing and stagnating populations in developed countries. According to the United Nations, Italy's population is expected to decline from 57m to 41m by 2050 while Japan's is projected to fall 17 per cent to 105m by 2080 .

Workers are also becoming more aware of their worth, with the internet providing much greater information on job opportunities at home and abroad, says Manpower.

Workers will also move within national boundaries to find work. China is currently struggling to accommodate "the rush of individuals leaving its poor western provinces in search of better jobs in the glittering commercial hubs of the country's east coast," it says.

Japan has also seen a huge population shift to its cities, imperilling its agricultural sector, while "Norway must deal with the emptying of its rural north and Mexico's southern states contend with