One of Mauritius’ offensive interests in the TiSA negotiations was to secure access to other TiSA countries’ labour markets through the so-called “Mode 4” commitments, that facilitate labour migration for people providing services. One of the main fears amongst TiSA opponents in Mauritius was that it would increase competition for jobs between non-Mauritians and nationals, and put downward pressure on labour standards.

The article considers both these arguments in detail. Its analysis shows that service trade agreements are not promising avenues for Mauritian jobseekers wanting to work abroad; evidence from other agreements clearly indicates that Mode 4 has very limited impacts on labour migration.

Similarly, the article concludes that TiSA was unlikely to lead to significant increased movement of low-skilled workers to Mauritius from countries that have lower labour standards. As for skilled workers, Mauritius’ TiSA proposal included various measures in their favour, for instance, that Mauritians must make up at least half of the professional staff of foreign establishments in the software and database services sectors.

Overall, the assessments findings reported in the article suggest that the main issues relating to the right to work relate to broader labour market policies on which TiSA would have little impact, including positive factors such as the recently introduced minimum wage and challenges such as the skills mismatch and regular reports of severe abuse of migrants’ labour rights.