ICL Guidelines concerning Statistics
of International Labour Migration 

The International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICL) Guidelines concerning Statistics of International Labour Migration are a comprehensive set of standards and recommendations developed to ensure consistency, comparability, and accuracy in the collection and reporting of data on the topic. They were endorsed at the 20th ICL, in 2018. Since then, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), partner countries, and organisations advanced work to test and validate the Guidelines through continued conceptual development, documentation of country case studies and survey pilot tests.

Based on these results, the revision of the International Recommendations on Migration Statistics, and the endorsement of the International Recommendations on Refugee (IRRS) and Statelessness Statistics (IROSS), ILO proposed updates to the Guidelines at the 21st ICL, in 2023. The purpose is to formalise frameworks, introduce flexibility on priority groups to be measured, and improve consistency with frameworks in closely related domains. The goal is to publish the reviewed Guidelines by mid-2025. 

EGRISS Recommendations and the ICL Guidelines

Overall, IRRS and IRROS provide guidance that will serve to further clarify the recommendations contained in the 20th ICLS Guidelines regarding the coverage and statistical treatment of refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and other related groups in national programmes of statistics on international labour migration and mobility.

They will also contribute to further specifying the priority data items needed to support their separate identification and to monitor their labour market integration vis-à-vis other migrants and non-migrants, the data sources and requirements to ensure data confidentiality and promote statistical coordination.