Kathmandu  - Outside Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport, groups of young men, mostly in their early 20s, gather to catch flights out of Nepal. They are all headed abroad for employment.

Palden Tamang, 22, is among them. Apprehensive about leaving the country for the first time, his local agent tries to calm him down with instructions about what to do once he gets to Qatar.

Tamang has been promised a job as a labourer in a construction company that pays about 10,000 rupees (130 dollars) a month along with food and lodging - wages that amount to a fortune for impoverished people living in the hills of Nepal who otherwise have few employment prospects at home.

"I managed to collect the money necessary for the arrangements by selling off some of the family property and the remaining amount borrowed from a village money lender," Tamang said nervously. "It will be hard work, and I will have to repay the loans I have taken."

Thousands of young men and women like Tamang leave Nepal for jobs in South-East Asia and the Gulf region each month, hoping to earn money to lift their families out of poverty.

But with the global economic downturn starting to affect their host countries, the futures of Tamang and others like him are by no means certain.

According to government figures, nearly 1.3 million Nepalese are now employed in countries in South-East and East Asia and the Gulf. Hundreds of thousands more are working in India.

In Qatar - which along with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia is the preferred destination for Nepalese labourers with more than 800,000 currently working in the region - Nepalese Ambassador Suraya Nath Mishra warned that 95 per cent of Nepalese workers there are employed in the construction sector, which is now vulnerable to the global economic slowdown.

Nepalese officials in the Gulf said that while there had yet to be any mass layoffs of Nepalese there, such sackings would hit Nepal's economy hard.

"The remittances sent back by Nepalese workers in the Gulf region and other countries now contribute nearly 25 per cent of the country's gross national product," said Bishal Bhattarai of the Labour and Transport Management Ministry. "By mid-October estimates, the contribution of migrant labour was worth around 142 billion rupees annually."

If mass layoffs do happen, the country could not only face economic troubles but social turmoil as well, economists warned.

"The government is struggling to cope with unemployment of youths remaining in the country, and if the hundreds of thousands of people employed in foreign countries are sent home, it could lead to social problems," economist Shankar Sharma said.

"Nepal's economy was largely sustained by remittances sent by labourers during the decade-long insurgency, and without them, the country's economy would be hard-hit," Sharma said, referring to the Maoists rebellion, which ended two years ago. "The problems will linger from 2009 through to 2010, and Nepal will have to face a drastic impact."

A government report called the Nepal Living Standard Survey said the contribution of remittances in reducing poverty from 1996 to 2003 was 11 per cent. It added that remittances not only helped reduce poverty but also helped reduce the depth and severity of poverty in Nepal.

"With remittance reaching the people at the grassroots, a sudden stop would affect the lives of not just the workers but also the family members who depend on the money," sociologist Ganesh Gurng said.

"One person being laid off from work will affect on average another eight people who are dependent on the money he sends," Gurng said.

And it not just the families that would be affected. Placement agencies, their agents and hotel owners who provide lodging to workers returning or going for employment would also be hard-hit.

"For now, there is still demand for workers," said Tilak Ranabhat, the president of the Foreign Employment Entrepreneurs Association, "but the number of people going abroad to seek work has shown a slight fall in recent days."

Ranabhat said he hoped it was a passing phase, a hope reflected in the wishes of the hundreds of thousands of Nepalese who work in foreign countries and others who depend on them. (dpa)