Thank you, I appreciate the reference. My reading of the honorable minister's statements seems to suggest that perhaps he means to send a large number of workers to the region, not necessarily Lebanon specifically. (I assume he meant 400,000 as a simple exaggeration, 100 times the 4,000 workers who had been brought home.) Instability throughout the larger ME would certainly impact negatively on the remittances sent home by Sri Lankan workers and have a rather dramatic effect on the Lankan economy. I can understand why Mr. Seneviratna would seek to calm fears at home that this important source of revenue for many Sri Lankan families would not be interrupted.

I still suspect that barring an all out regional war migrant workers will continue to shift from one Middle Eastern country to another depending on where the "hot spots" are. Also important to note I think, workers from East and Southern Asia have historically shown a remarkable degree of stamina and bravery in staying at their jobs in Middle Eastern countries even during times of increased violence (oftentimes when more moneyed individuals or firms, whether native or not, are fleeing). For instance, I believe the numbers of Thai agricultural workers in Israel has remained relatively constant in times of violence, although it has dropped if the economy has slowed because of that violence.

Still, there may come a time when enough is enough and remittance workers look elsewhere for employment. Although I'm still not sure whether the current Lebanon-Israeli conflict will have an impact on the number of foreign workers in the region, I think that Mr. Gosh has brought up an excellent and often overlooked point. Many countries, especially developing Asian countries, look to the Middle East not just for oil but for enormously important employment markets. Should a conflict slow the regional economy or make it too dangerous for foreign workers there will be a ripple of unemployment and discontent throughout South & South East Asia. The price of oil is not the only economic factor of concern.

I would like the following statement by the Sri Lankan Labor Minister for the benefit of Mr. Joshua Rodd:

On Sri Lankan government television, Labour Minister Athavuda Seneviratna had admitted that only 4,000 of the 93,000 Sri Lankan workers had been evacuated. "Insisting that these workers are a major source of foreign exchange to Sri Lanka, he blatantly said he had no wish to bring all of them back. He stated that his plan is to send another 400,000 Sri Lankan workers there."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/sril-a10.shtml

Mr. Goth--Not to be too pedantic, but I think you must have a typo when you suggest that Sri Lanka was "planning to send another 400,000 workers" to Lebanon. Although Sri Lanka certainly exports an enormous number of workers to the Middle East and Gulf region, sending ~2% of Sri Lanka's 20 million odd people to Lebanon seems unlikely. (Were this migration to occur it would be interesting to see how the people of Lebanon [~3.8 million persons] would react to a 10% increase in their country's population.) To address your point about the war's effect on migrant workers, I suspect that if the conflict prevents them from taking or maintaining employment in Lebanon then Nepalese and Sri Lankan workers will simply shift to other countries in the Gulf/Middle Eastern region much like the companies and businesses to which you allude.