121 OFWs leaves RP every hour

I stumbled an interesting study on OFWs from abs-cbnnews.com. Its surprising to think that despite the weakening dollar, many pinoys and pinays are eager to work overseas. Something is not normal here…:) check the rest of the articles below.

An average of 121 overseas Filipino workers leave the Philippines every hour, a study conducted by the Commission on Population revealed Friday.

The 4th State of the Philippine Population Report, a periodic publication funded by the United Nations Population Fund, revealed that most overseas workers were aged 25 to 29 but median age from the oldest to the youngest was 32.

The median age was higher among the males (35) than among the females (29). This is because the men were mostly in the older age brackets - the biggest proportion (22.3 percent) were 45 years old and over. On the other hand, female OFWs were mostly young with the biggest proportion in the 25-29 age group.

The report revealed that majority of OFWs are college graduates (44 percent) although a considerable number only finished high school (31 percent). About 12 percent of OFWs only finished grade school.

PopCom Commissioner Grace Cruz said the data showed that migrants with higher educational attainment are still favored by foreign employers.

She said that most of the OFWs come from Luzon particularly in Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon. “But this is only expected because most of the recruitment agencies and activities are based in these areas,” she added.

The report said temporary labor migrants still make up the biggest number of Filipino international migrants in recent years. In 2006, about 46 percent of estimated total number of overseas Filipinos were temporary migrants, 43 percent were permanent and 11 percent were irregular.

The report also revealed that more Filipino women are getting jobs overseas and may soon outnumber male overseas Filipino workers.

Records from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration showed that females made up more than 70 percent of newly hired overseas Filipino workers from the year 2000 to 2005. In 2004 and 2006, Filipinas actually outnumbered the men in the total number of Filipinos employed abroad. This is a far cry from the National Statistics Office 2000 Census data that showed 50.27 percent of OFWs at the time were male and 49.73 percent were female.

The PopCom report added that in 2006, six out of 10 newly-hired overseas workers were female. At least 28.8 percent of total women OFWs are in the 25-29 age group, the report added.

Cruz said most Filipinas are hired as household helpers, entertainers, caregivers, nurses and health service providers in other countries. She said women predominate in seven out of 10 top destination countries for OFWs.

The report cited a study by the Asian Development Bank that showed that OFWs send an average of $340 in monthly remittances to their families. The National Statistics Office also revealed that average yearly remittances in 2004 came up to P93,613 per male OFW, and P51,420 per female OFW.

At the household level, remittances from abroad resulted in financial and material gains for the migrants’ families. At the national level, records of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas indicate that a total of $87.64 billion worth of remittances had been sent in by OFWs from 1995-2006.

Rosabel Guerrero, Deputy Director of BSP’s Department of Economics and Statistics, noted that the amount only shows remittances coursed through the banking system and not those sent through door-to-door, courier and personal channels.

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