Potential Responses to the COVID-19 Outbreak in Support of Migrant Workers

This note describes the key challenges facing the health, livelihoods, and mobility of internal and international migrants and their families due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The note presents the policy options available to governments to address these challenges and describes the assistance that the World Bank can offer in areas related to social protection and jobs to support these efforts. Based on estimates of migration stocks and remittances, before the pandemic around 270 million people lived outside their country of birth and sent nearly $700billion in remittances to their home countries. As of mid-May, the20 countries with the most cases of COVID-19host 55percentof the world’s migrants who send home 54 percentof the world’s remittances.