The Collaborative International Dictionary
Migrant \Mi"grant\, n.
A migratory bird, person, or other animal.
A person who changes residence frequently in search of employment, especially farm labor, such as harvesting crops seasonally; also called migrant laborer or migrant worker. Sometimes the migrant worker is not a resident of the country in which the work is performed.
Wiktionary
n. 1 An agricultural labourer who travels from place to place harvesting seasonal crops. 2 A person with temporary permission to work in another country; a guest worker.
Wikipedia
The term "migrant worker" has different official meanings and connotations in different parts of the world. The United Nations' definition is broad, including any people working outside of their home country. Some of these are called expatriates. Several countries have millions of foreign workers. Some have millions of illegal immigrants, most of them being workers also.
According to the International Labour Organization, as of 2014 there were an estimated 232 million international migrants in the world (defined as persons outside their country of origin for 12 months or more) and approximately half of them were estimated to be economically active (i.e. being employed or seeking employment).
According to the Panos Network, it is never appropriate to refer to asylum-seekers or refugees as “illegal migrants”. On the one hand, their reasons for moving are different from those of migrants, and on the other, international law recognizes that those fleeing conflict or persecution may need to cross international borders without authorization and should not be penalized for doing so.
The term can also be used to describe someone who migrates within a country, possibly their own, in order to pursue work such as seasonal work.
Usage examples of "migrant worker".
The centres of support for the PAC were widely scattered across the land, from the eastern tribal areas of the Ciskei and the Transkei to the southern part of the great industrial triangle along the Vaal river, and a thousand miles south of that in the black township of Longa and Nyanga that housed the greater part of the migrant worker force that serviced the mother city of Cape Town.
I told her of my upbringing on Cal-listo, of my two sisters, and of the problem that had led to our abrupt departure to the peripheral society of the Jupiter Ecliptic-the Juclip-my year as a migrant worker in the agricultural belt, and my entry into the Jupiter Navy at age sixteen.
He looked the part, but he still didn't feel like a migrant worker.
It was going into space, to become a migrant worker among the stars.
Like Stacy was a migrant worker, no better than a strawberry picker.
She was a tiny woman who looked like one of those migrant worker women in Charles's photography book.
We had funds enough for the moment, though, so I told Stratus we probably wouldn't be joining the migrant worker pool before August.