Foreign Remittances
In a state of 32 million where unemployment approaches 20 percent, one out of six employed Keralite now works overseas. As of 2008, the Gulf countries altogether have a Keralite population of more than 2.5 million, who send home annually a sum of USD 6.81 billion, which is more than 15.13% of Remittance to India in 2008. The largest number work in construction, although high literacy allows Keralites to secure office work. Foreign remittances augment the state’s economic output by nearly 25 percent. Migrants’ families are three times as likely as those of nonmigrants to live in superior housing, and about twice as likely to have telephones, refrigerators and cars.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Kerala
Famous quotes containing the word foreign:
“The important thing about travel in foreign lands is that it breaks the speech habits and makes you blab less, and breaks the habitual space-feeling because of different village plans and different landscapes. It is less important that there are different mores, for you counteract these with your own reaction- formations.”
—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)