Last year more than one million Filipinos worked abroad as servants,nurses,sailors and in other difficult but low-paid jobs.Southeast Asians leave their poorer countries for their richer neighbours. Many of these wage-earners return in the end.In the meantime,they send home huge amounts of money--in the Philippines' case,over 10% of its GDP.Between January and November,the amount was up 18% on the same period of 2005.Poverty and unemployment are still high in the Philippines and other labour-exporting  countries.They would be far worse but for this outflow of bodies and inflow of dollars.As for those Asian countries that import  labour,as in Europe,falling birth rates mean they are going to need more foreign workers. On January 13th leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) signed an agreement to help migrant  workers--with the realization that the flow of labour between their countries is a growing problem that they cannot blame on outsiders.A 2005 study showed that 8.4 million Southeast Asians worked outside their home countries,but this did not include the huge numbers of Indonesians doing so without papers.So the true total is probably rather higher. Of the ten ASEAN countries,the Philippines,Indonesia,Myanmar,Cambodia,Vietnam and Laos export labour,Singapore and Brunei import it,and Thailand and Malaysia do both.Sziraczki of the UN's International Labour Organization points out that,in the next ten years,the total labour force of the worker-exporting countries should grow by about a third.It makes sense to work on the problem before it gets out of control. People in the receiving countries seem to be worried about competition for their jobs.Most Thais said their government should admit  no more foreign workers,and a few thought otherwise.Even in Singapore,just over half of people are against admitting more foreign workers.Malaysians think that the increase in foreign workers has worsened crime rates . For the labour-importing countries,the flow of labour may lead to  _  .
higher birth rates lower crime rates greater money inflows stronger job competition