Nearly half of the estimated 2.4 million overseas Filipinos are from Luzon, with the Southern Tagalog having the biggest share of OFs around the world at 432,000, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Tailing in second is Central Luzon with 15 percent or 360,000 and the National Capital Region (NCR) with 11 or 264,000.
“OFs from these three regions reported almost 44 percent (or 1.56 million) of the total number of Filipinos working abroad,” stated a PSA report taken from the agency’s 2015 Survey on Overseas Filipinos (SOF), the latest official count so far.
The PSA report also stated that the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has the smallest number of deployed overseas Filipinos at 36,000.
One in every four OFs worked in Saudi Arabia, which remained to be the top destination of OFWs in April to September 2015, the report meantime said. Other countries which were popular destinations of OFs are United Arab Emirates (15.5 %), Hongkong (5.9%), Kuwait (5.8 %), Singapore (5.7%) and Qatar (5.5 %).
Back in the Philippines meanwhile, PSA reported that the employment rate in January 2017 was estimated at 93.4 percent with four regions, Ilocos, NCR, Caraga, and Southern Tagalog having the lowest employment rates. (JD)
