in New York Times may 2009

A reverse Exodus Updends Migrant Lives
By Rachel Donadio, Hiroko Tabuchi and Nelson D. Schwartz

Six years after the Spanish construction boom lured him here from his native Romania, Constantin Marius Mituletu isgoing home, another victim of the bust that is reversing the human tide that has transformed Europe and Asia in the past decade.

"Everyone says in Romania thers's no work",Mr M. said with a touch of bravado as he lifted his mirrored sunglasses onto his forehead. "If there are 26 millions people there, they have to do something. I want to see for myself.
Mr M.,who is planning to return to Romania this month, is one of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa who have flocked to fast-growing places like Spain, Ireland, Britain and even Japan in the past decade, drawn by low unemployment and liberal immigration policies.

But in a marked sign of how quickly the economies of Europe and Asia have deteriorated, workers like Mr M. are now heading home, hoping to find better job prospects, or at least lower costs of living in their native lands. Some are leaving on their own, but others are being paid to leave by their host countries. Japan in the 1990s encouraged Latin Americans to come and help ease a labor shortage, but is now paying these workers up to 3000$ to go back and not return.

In Western Europe the migratory trend has been pronounced.
Consider Ireland's capital, wich earned the nickname Dublinski as roughly 180 000 Poles, Czechs and other Eastern Europeans went there in 2004. Now, a stunning rise in the unemployment rate, currently 11 purcent, is making even the most recent arrivals rethink their plans.
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