Official backtracks on mass layoffs of overseas workers

Manila: The labour official has backtracked on an earlier statement warning that tens of thousands of Filipinos will be laid off from jobs abroad as a result of the global financial crisis.

Secretary Marianito Roque of the Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE) said that deployment of Filipino workers for jobs in various destinations overseas "remains robust" amidst the raging global financial crisis.

"The financial crisis has not yet affected deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) as the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) continues to process the deployment of close to 3,000 OFWs who leave the country for their overseas employment on a daily basis," Roque said in an official statement issued by the DOLE.

Earlier, last week, a statement issued by Roque warning of the possibility of massive job cuts, particularly on Filipinos working abroad, created panic.

Clarification

The labour official, during a press briefing, was quoted by news agencies as saying that at least 500,000 Filipinos working abroad will lose their jobs as a result of the global economic shakedown.

But in his most recent statement, Roque clarified that the massive job displacements will not occur - at least not in the near future.

He explained that his earlier statement was based on a "worst case scenario" which was crafted by the DOLE in order to map out contingency responses to the impact of the financial crisis on OFWs.

He said the number of OFWs who have lost their jobs overseas so far due to the financial crisis and had already gone home is not alarming as they only constitute part of an average of 1,000 OFWs who return to the country every month.

The returning OFWs, he said, also included those whose employment contracts abroad had expired.

According to Roque, the OFWs' employment termination this year, including those adversely affected by the financial crisis, is around the same level as that of 2007.

He said that while almost 3,000 Filipino workers went abroad everyday, only about a thousand of them return home every month indicating that the trend of OFW retrenchments even in the midst of the financial crisis is within the normal level.