The deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) is not expected to recover within the next two years from 2021 to 2022 as the world grapples with the pandemic and several economies in the Middle East and Europe are less optimistic of their previous economic wealth for the coming years.
In 2020, 500,000 OFWs were displaced from work with close to 380,000 repatriated to the country and another 100,000 more to arrive in 2021. The rest around 80,000 to 100,000 out of work have decided to remain in their jobs sites buoyed by unemployment insurance, which expects to last a few more months of 2021.
The 80,000 to 100,000 OFWs still abroad are hoping that the economies of the countries will pick up by the middle of 2021 when the vaccine has been distributed to most of population of those countries and normalcy will return, prompting more business and industries to reopen.
Meanwhile the 400,000 OFWs in the country are adjusting to their way of life with many that have started their own business with the help of the government’s reintegration and livelihood programs.
The overseas recruitment industry, which was a multibillion industry with 800 land-based agencies and around 300 sea-based manning agencies, has virtually collapsed with just less than 100 agencies still in business according to Philippine Overseas Employment Administration chief Bernard Olalia.
There are very few countries which are still open to OFWs like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Great Britain and Germany which still need health-care workers with new destinations like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Serbia still closed due to the new variant of the Covid -19 spreading to many countries in Europe and the US.
Recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani attributed the grim outlook on deployment to travel restrictions imposed by several countries in the Middle East where we have 70 percent of our yearly deployment.
Based on the initial data it presented during a Senate budget hearing, POEA said the number of deployed in 2020 was 1,394,788, which is considerably lower compared to the 2 million for the entire 2019.
Of the said OFWs deployed this year, 1,101,040 are land-based and 293,748 are sea-based.
Geslani said one of the most severely affected were household service workers (HSW), which he said, make up 60 percent of the country’s yearly deployment figures.
Unless the Middle East countries recover from the pandemic and current low crude oil prices many of these oil-rich nations will remain closed due to the high rate of Covid cases and poor economic recoveries.
He said the low deployment in the Middle East is expected to continue up to next year since the top destinations for OFWs in the region remain closed to foreigners except Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates with limited job orders.
The cruise ships industry sent back 100,000 seafarers and many of these OFWs are still waiting for the US major cruise lines to start operating by the first quarter of 2021, while in Europe, very few cruise operators have started their cruises with less than 10,000 OFWs who were recalled late last year but with limited number of passenger bookings, coupled with very strict health and safety protocols.