The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has deployed more than 1.2 million Filipinos abroad, as per partial data recorded by the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) from January to September 2017 which was released on December 26.
POEA said the country has deployed 1,281,506 workers this year; 736,684 of which were rehires while 321,345 were new hires.
However, Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III said that the agency is still expecting an increase before the year ends.
“Our current deployment is 3,000 to 5,000 a day…this is still increasing,” Bello said.
POEA noted that 1,058,029 of whom were land-based workers while 223,477 were seafarers.
In addition, the agency disclosed that the 1.2 million OFWS were provided repatriation and reintegration service.
With this, Bello mentioned they are working on bigger repatriation budget for next year despite the existing tension among several countries in the Middle East.
For last year’s record, POEA’s marked over two-million OFWS deployed for the first time.
