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OFW remittances to remain low if deployment won’t increase 

Remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) is projected to only grow no more than 2 percent for the year 2021-2022.

This is the projection of the recruitment sector unless deployment of OFWs rebounds.

Recruitment consultant Manny Geslani, in another projection, said the deployment will remain flat for the coming two years.

According to him, many labor markets like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman were pushed to close their borders last year due to the global pandemic.

Saudi Arabia, which is the largest labor market for the Philippines in the past 20 years, experienced an economic downturn after prices of crude oil plunged to below 50 dollars per barrel.

The global pandemic has also slowed down the economic activity.

In effect, more than 300,000 OFWs were repatriated back to the country.

The Middle East is where the Philippines sends 70 percent of workers deployed yearly.

Deployment in the Middle East from 2018 to 2019 accounted to more than 400,000 OFWs.

Geslani said half a million OFWs were displaced from work last year with close to 380,000 repatriated to the country.

There is another 100,000 more expected to arrive in 2021.

The identified most affected sector were household service workers, which is 60 percent of the country’s yearly deployment figures.

In a Senate budget hearing by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the number of deployed in 2020 was 1.4 million.

This is lower compared to the 2 million for the year 2019.

Most of those deployed were land-based at 1.1 million, and 293,748 were sea-based.

Meanwhile, few countries and territories are open to OFWs like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Great Britain and Germany.

Most of their hirings are for health-care workers. (ES)

Staff Report

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