MIGRANT WORKERS' VULNERABILITY AND MASS REPATRIATION PHENOMENONS DURING THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK: FROM GLOBAL IMPACTS TO THE INDONESIAN CASE

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak that emerged in the People's Republic of China has changed the landscape of human life. In a short period of time, this mysterious and deadly virus spread sporadically to various parts of the world. Responding to this, many countries have imposed social restriction policies and even total lockdowns. This policy resulted in two major consequences, namely a global economic recession and an extreme increase in unemployment. In this crisis situation, one of the most affected vulnerable groups is migrant workers. The COVID-19 outbreak has caused many migrant workers to lose their jobs, forcing them to carry out mass repatriations. To analyze this phenomenon, this research uses a descriptive qualitative approach. The research results show that: First, migrant workers who represent 4.7 percent of the global workforce face loss of income due to layoffs and depletion of work permits or visas. Second, there are differences in data from BP2MI and the World Bank regarding the number of Indonesian migrant workers with data disparities reaching 4.3 million people. This becomes a big problem in times of crisis such as the COVID-19 outbreak because the government has difficulty reaching them. Third, the crisis situation due to COVID-19 has significantly changed the repatriation mechanism for Indonesian migrant workers because it has to be adjusted to the national policy for handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus the mass repatriation of Indonesian migrant workers due to the COVID-19 outbreak is included in the force majeure category.