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（劳务输出）countries. They would be far worse but for this outflow of bodies and inflow of dollars As for those Asian countries that import （输入）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（流动的）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. Sziracazki 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 semse 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 （准入） no more foreign workers, and a few thought otherwise. Even in Singapore, just over ball of people are against admitting more foreign workers. Malaysians think that the increase in foreign workers has worsened crime rates（犯罪率）.

去年有超过100万的菲律宾藉工人出国从事佣人，保姆，海员等其它艰苦而低收入的工作。许多东南亚人纷纷离开自己贫穷的国家来到他们富裕的邻国。
最后许多这些工薪阶层还是回到了自己的国家，同时，也为家里带来了大笔金钱---就拿菲律宾来说，这一收入占其国内生产总值的10%之多。从1月 至11月，这一金额是2005年同期的18%，在菲律宾和其它一些劳务输出国家，贫穷和失业率仍然很高。但如果没有人口的外流和美金的流入，情况对于他们来说会更糟。对于那些和欧洲一样，需要输入劳力的亚洲国家，人口出生率的降低使得他们需要更多的外藉工人。国与国之间的劳力流动，带来了越来越多的问题，这也不能责怪别人，在意识到这一点之后，东南亚国家联盟（ASEAN)的领导人于1月13日签署了一项协议，来帮助这些流动工人。2005年的一项研究表明，有840万的东南亚人在国外工作，但这还不包括众多的没有身份证件的印尼人，所以真实的人数可能会更高。
10个ASEAN国家当中，菲律宾，印度尼西亚，缅甸，柬埔寨，越南和老挝向外输出劳力，新加坡及文莱输入劳力，泰国和马来西亚既输出也输入劳力。联合国国际劳工组织的Sziracazki指出，在今后的十年里，输出劳动力的国家将会增长三分之一，在失去控制之前就着手解决这些问题具有重要意义。
在接受劳务的国家，人们对于工作的竞争感到担忧。大多数泰国人说政府不应再输入更多的外藉劳工，只有少数人不这么认为。即使是在新加坡，也只有少数人反对进口更多的劳力。在马来西亚，人们认为外藉劳工的增加使得犯罪率有所上升。