The overseas employment of Filipino workers remains steady despite the worldwide economic meltdown, the Philippines president has said.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, speaking during a radio interview on 18 December, commented: “It is important to underscore that, thus far, employment abroad remains strong and very few of our Filipino expatriates have lost their jobs.”
She added that despite the collapse of world financial markets in some countries, the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) continues to increase, as do their remittances.
Arroyo pointed out that although some jobs have been lost, new ones are being created, like the 37,000 available jobs in Qatar and 6,000 in Dubai. She underscored the importance of closely monitoring the impact of the global economic situation on OFWs as “we never want even one of our hard-working Filipinos to lose a job”.
The president – who had earlier ordered the setting up of a P1bn (over €15m) expatriates’ livelihood fund for displaced OFWs – stressed that the government will not hesitate to take any action required to help Filipinos wherever they might be.
Arroyo added that the government is developing retraining programmes and bringing these to selected international locations where large ex-pat worker populations are based “so that they can prepare for employment in the Philippines should they need to do so or should they wish to do so”.
She explained that there are a number of industries in the country that can offer employment to returning ex-pat workers like the business process outsourcing sector.
“Ex-pat workers with good English who have experienced interacting with people from other countries can be very strong candidates for employment in these sectors if they have the right training,” she said.
Some 8.5 million Filipinos presently live or work abroad. As of October this year, they remitted to their families in the Philippines some $15bn, an amount equivalent to 10 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
