Temporary and Circular Labour Migration

As a result of the AENEAS 2006 Labour Migration Project for West Africa, the Labour Migration Unit established a database for candidate migrant workers at the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare of Ghana. Through this and a series of targeted training workshops, the foundation has been laid for the establishment of a job-matching scheme between Ghana and Italy as well as circular migration schemes involving other EU Member States and Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

The objectives of the MOU is to facilitate safe and legal migration by promoting orderly migration of workers from India to meet the growing demand for skilled and trained workers in the Danish economy and to prevent illegal migration and the smuggling of people for financial benefits.



The proposed MOU provides for cooperation between the two countries concerning the branches:

(a) labour market expansion;

(b) employment facilitation;

(c) organized entry and orderly migration, and;

The seasonal foreign worker programme aims to facilitate circular migration, provides employers with regulations and guidelines on their obligations and ensures the protection of migrant workers' rights. The programme focuses on origin countries with which France has concluded bilateral agreements: Tunisia, Morocco, and Poland.

Guatemala has been able to negotiate, through the Quebec Farmers Association "Ferme" large seasonal movements of agricultural workers under Canada's universal temporary foreign worker visa category. The program has been evaluated as highly successful in terms of almost 100% assured returns, high remittances, 20% female intake and improved family welfare back home.

This pilot project was established in order to enable foreign workers to be hired for jobs that usually require secondary school or job-specific training or on-the-job training.

The Working Holiday Maker visa (subclass 417) is a temporary visa for young people who want to holiday and work in Australia for up to a year. It is a temporary visa that encourages cultural exchange and closer ties between Australia and eligible countries. 

It fills critical jobs during harvesting and picking seasons and provides a large and mobile workforce that helps meet seasonal demand for agricultural workers. They also provide labour for jobs for which natives are hard to find in rural and remote areas. 

The Skilled Migration Points Test aims to identify skilled migrants and also provides skills/qualification recognition. The Skillselect system is points based, with applicants receiving points for criteria ranging from Age to work experience. Applicants must score a minimum of 60 points for their visa to be granted. The following tables give a detailed breakdown of how points are awarded for Skillselect visas.

The medical training initiative accommodates overseas post-graduate medical specialists to undertake a fixed period of training in the UK for up to two years. This is a temporary route and it seeks to promote circular migration so that participants in a particular scheme could return to their home country and apply the skills and knowledge developed during that time in the UK. 



The MTI scheme allows International Medical Graduates (IMGs) to come to the UK for a maximum of 2 years to train within the National Health Service (NHS).

The UK funds a health partnership scheme, which enables overseas volunteering by UK health professionals in order to contribute effectively to global health development and also to strengthen the skills of the UK workforce when the volunteer returns. 

The Health Partnership Scheme (HPS) works to improve healthcare for some of the world’s poorest people through partnerships between the NHS and UK institutions and developing countries’ health systems.

TOKTEN is jointly administered by UNDP and UNV (UN Volunteers). Inaugurated in 1977, it aims to transfer technical expertise of expatriates through short term consultancies in their countries of origin. These are not envisaged as employment missions, but rather as short-term voluntary services.