MANILA, Philippines – Amid conflicting tallies from various government agencies on the real number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) affected by the global economic crisis, the labor department reported that less than 500 workers hit by the meltdown had been assisted by the government.
Citing figures from the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said that only 439 OFWs had been displaced and assisted by the government due to the US-led crisis.
Of the 439 displaced, 312 had been given referrals to recruitment agencies for possible placement overseas, the department said in its year-end report Wednesday.
“With some 1.221 million OFWs deployed worldwide from January to November this year, there have been no appalling effects observed from the global financial crisis on OFW deployment,” Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said.
“Notwithstanding the displacement of a limited number of workers due to bankruptcy, retrenchment, redundancy, restructuring and reduction in workload – being offset as the global economy’s efforts to turn the situation favorably around would continue to require skilled OFWs,” he added.
The DOLE had been mum on the exact figures of OFWs laid off due to the global economic crisis.
In an earlier interview, Roque said only about a thousand Filipinos return home every month, indicating that the trend of OFW retrenchments in the midst of the financial crisis is within the normal level.
The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) chief, Carmelita Dimzon, told GMANews.TV on Monday that 3,000 OFWs have returned home jobless since October, when world economies particularly in export dependent countries like Taiwan and Macau started to suffer from the crisis.
Labor Undersecretary Rosalinda Baldoz said that only 1,400 Filipino workers in Taiwan have become jobless overseas due to the crisis.
Baldoz told GMANews.TV that these OFWs came from Taiwan and they have not received similar displacements from other countries.
The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), on the other hand, said it does not monitor the number of laid-off workers due to the crisis although it had ordered all 34 posts from all over the country to monitor the situation.
In an OFW forum earlier this month, Ma. Teresa Soriano, DOLE Assistant Secretary said more than half-a-million OFWs in at least six countries are at risk of losing their jobs.
Of the figure, 268,000 are factory workers from South Korea, Taiwan, and Macau; 130,000 are cruise ship workers; 129,000 are OFWs holding temporary work visas in the US; and the remaining 48,000 are household service workers in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau.
However, Roque disputed the figures and said that only 10 percent from the four sectors identified are expected to be at risk.
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