In 2020, Indians accounted for over 6 per cent of global emigrants

The total number of Indians living outside of the country touched 17.9 million that year

While the pandemic-induced lockdowns reduced the number of Indians travelling abroad in 2020, the latest data shows Indians accounted for 6.3 per cent of the total number of people living outside of their countries that year. In 2020, the overall number of Indian emigrants touched 17.9 million, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. This was a marked increase from 6.6 million in 1990.

The latest World Migration Report by the International Organisation for Migration, a United Nations Agency that advises governments on matters related to migration, observed that the number of people living outside their country of birth nearly doubled to 280.5 million in 2020 from 152.9 million in 1990.

A Business Standard analysis of Lok Sabha replies by the Ministry of External Affairs found that the number of Indians going out of the country on an employment visa doubled in the past three years. Till July 27, 2022 (for which data is last available), 1.302 million Indians had gone abroad for employment.

The analysis also found that out of these 1.3 million, 189,206 Indians left for 18 emigration check required (ECR) countries for private jobs compared to 94,145 in 2020.

ECR passports are issued for employment in these 18 countries to people who have not completed their 10th standard education and are skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. ECR countries include the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, among others.

Some Indian states, however, have a larger population of workers who migrate in search of private jobs abroad. Till June 2022 (for which data is last available), more than half of the 189,000 migrants leaving India belonged to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The combined figures for UP and Bihar stood at 98,321. 

The migration trend from India to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has also seen an increase after the pandemic. Although the number of Indians migrating to these countries declined by 74.3 per cent in 2020 from 2019 due to the pandemic, the numbers have since doubled. Till July 2022, a total of 185,948 Indians had migrated to the GCC countries.

Gulf Cooperation Council Countries are a political and economic union of countries that include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.