50,000 Filipinos working abroad face jobs woe

JOBS CRISIS: Many Filipinos working in the Gulf are employed in the hospitality and service industries.

Thousands of Filipino nationals working abroad - including many in the UAE - are expected to lose their jobs in 2009 as the global recession deepens, it has been reported.

The Department of Labour and Employment in the Philippines predicts that around 50,000 overseas workers could lose their jobs this year as a result of the economic slowdown.

"As of today, there are probably 5,000 overseas workers who have already lost their jobs in Taiwan, Dubai and South Korea. Our expectation is that it would reach 50,000 this year," Labour Secretary Marianito Roque told media in the Philippines.

Roque assured affected workers that they could find work once they return to the Philippines and he added that others could opt to be trained for other jobs.

However, the labour chief said deployment of Filipino workers for overseas work would continue despite the crisis.

“We are deploying more or less 3,000 workers every day. We increased deployment by 24 percent in 2008, which is close 1.3 million workers,” he said.

Total deployment from January to October stood at 1.1 million, 25.5 percent higher than the number of Filipinos who left the country in the same period in 2007, data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration showed.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Who are they kidding???
Posted by sam on Sunday 4 January 2009 at 11:30 UAE time

People in the Philippines leave for the reason the jobs available back home are not sufficient & what sort of jobs the gov't. has waiting for them. Sad to say our country is still a country where it is not "what you know" it is "whom you know", "where you come from" " what you look like"...

Only 50,000?
Posted by OFW, London, UK on Saturday 3 January 2009 at 20:58 UAE time


I'd say more like 250,000 to 500,000. This next two years could well be the most shocking the Philippine economy has ever experienced.

No surprise then to see the various political and religious clans in the Philippines still totally ignoring it; showing off to the media, spouting soundbites that sound good but mean nothing, grabbing for power and pork. Anything except address the problems of the country.

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