International migration is a difficult megatrend to predict. Yesterday, the COVID-19 pandemic; today, the Ukrainian refugee crisis; these have had and will have unpredictable long-lasting impacts on the  nternational cross-border movements of tourists and migrant workers.

After two years of a global pandemic, the world is still in the midst of a disruption of migration patterns. The cascade of border closures and the wild swings in economic activity upended predictions about labor migration. Deployment from the 12 main origin countries in Asia fell by 44% between 2019 and 2020. Only a few countries saw deployment rebound in 2021, and none to the 2019 level. Remittances to Asian countries declined in 2020, but less than worker outflows, and recovered in 2021. Meanwhile, the mobility of migrant workers and related remittance flows have deviated from the previous trends.