New York: A senior United Nations official dealing with population issues has asked governments not to use migrants as scapegoats amid the current international recession, warning that migrant workers are already vulnerable to job cuts during economic crises.

"Migration flows are going to be disturbed and migrants are going to share the negative effects of the economic downturn in the whole population of the world," said Hania Zlotnik, Director of the Population Division at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

In the current economic climate, it is important for governments to get together to talk about issues of migration and for a forum to exist at the global level because the recession is affecting most of the countries receiving migrant workers, she told reporters.

Since 2007 there has been an increase in the unemployment rates of key groups of migrants in different countries, according to Zlotnik.

Spain has seen a sharp increase in the number of unemployed foreigners. Between April and June at least 100,000 more people lost their jobs in the Iberian nation, taking the total number of jobless migrants to 280,000.

The same trend is appearing in the United States where the unemployment rate among Hispanics is rising and for the first time in several years the rate of out-of-work immigrant Hispanics is higher than the rate of non-immigrant Hispanics at around seven per cent.
Source : PTI