500,000 OFWs leave RP in first 5 months of 2008
- Posted by admin on June 28th, 2008 filed in What's New
MANILA, Philippines — A total of 516,466 Filipino workers left for work abroad during the first five months of the year, the Department of Labor and Employment said Friday.
Citing the latest preliminary report of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said “the continued growth and strength of global OFW deployment reflect the distinct global preference for Filipino workers.”
He said the figure represents a 12.4-percent increase in deployment of documented workers over the same period in 2007, when a total of 459,414 Filipino workers went overseas. It also means that the OFW deployment was faster.
Roque said the figure also means that the one-million deployment target for the year was met earlier. He said that the number of OFWs deployed during the first five months of the year alone now represents some 51.6 percent, or more than half, of the total goal to deploy one million documented OFWs worldwide in 2008.
The labor chief said deployment was boosted by an 8.6-percent increment in new hires from 142,618 in the same period last year, to 154,841 from January to May this year.
At the same time, he cited a report of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) that global OFW remittances have reached $5.4 billion (more than P240.89 billion at current rates) during the first four months, or from January to April this year.
He said the substantial increase in global OFW remittances, which are projected to approach, if not surpass, the US$15 billion mark by end 2008, is also a result of the faster deployment of OFWs.
The BSP report noted that the prospects for global OFW deployment remain upbeat due to the Philippines’ efficient deployment system, reinforced by the country’s continuing bilateral cooperation for OFW employment opportunities with emerging markets like Canada and other host countries.
The Philippines, the same report said, had also been singled as the “Best Practice Country” by the Human Resources Development Service of Korea (HRD Korea) due to the efficiency of the OFW deployment system and the process improvements.
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August 12th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
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