Mauritius has agreed to proceed with Nepal’s proposal for a revised government-to-government (G2G) arrangement to recruit Nepali workers, moving the two countries closer to a new hiring mechanism.
The Mauritius High Commission in New Delhi sent a revised draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 29. Nepal is now preparing domestic procedures to finalise it. The draft has not been signed or come into force, and no workers are yet being sent through a new G2G system.
This is not the first labour agreement between the two countries. Nepal and Mauritius signed a labour MoU in Geneva in June 2019, when Nepal’s then Labour Minister Gokarna Bista and Mauritius’s Labour Minister Soodesh Satkam Callichurn signed a framework covering recruitment, employment, protection, welfare and repatriation of Nepali workers.
How the proposal came about
On June 9, Nepal’s Minister for Youth, Labour and Employment Ramji Yadav met Mauritius’s Minister of Labour and Industrial Relations Mohamed Reza Cassam Uteem in Geneva and proposed expanding cooperation through a G2G recruitment system.
The Mauritian minister said employers in Mauritius already covered recruitment costs, expressed interest in creating more jobs for Nepali workers and proposed an international employment fair in Nepal.
What the draft proposes
Under the revised draft, the two governments would oversee recruitment, selecting workers according to employers’ requirements and the skills needed. Recruitment would follow the laws of both countries.
Employers would have defined responsibilities, and the draft contains provisions on workers’ rights, welfare, employment conditions and return arrangements when contracts expire or end.
It is based on the Employers Pay Principle, under which employers rather than workers bear recruitment costs.
Five sectors are identified: manufacturing, construction, agriculture, tourism and information technology. These are sectors named in the draft, not confirmed vacancies.
What the 2019 MoU already provides
The 2019 agreement already required employers to pay specified recruitment and travel costs and guaranteed Nepali workers at least the minimum wage applicable to Mauritian nationals. It also provides for equal treatment, written contracts, protection from abuse including unlawful passport retention, the right to remit money, repatriation including of remains, and, in certain circumstances such as exploitation or business closure, the chance to seek work with another employer under Mauritian law.
That agreement allowed recruitment through licensed private agencies. Nepal’s Labour Migration Report 2024 lists Mauritius among destinations where private agencies manage recruitment, unlike the G2G model used for South Korea and Israel.
Existing workforce
Mauritius accounted for about 1.6 percent of new labour approvals among the top 10 destinations in FY 2023/24, with Nepalis recruited as machine operators, masons, scaffolders and steel fixers
Questions ahead
The International Labour Organization has noted that bilateral labour agreements depend on implementation and monitoring. Open questions include when the revised MoU will be signed, whether it will replace or supplement the 2019 agreement, whether recruitment will be entirely G2G or involve licensed agencies, and what weakness the new mechanism is meant to fix given that employers already pay costs on paper.
