Demand growing for skilled, professional OFWs

Filipinos maids appear to be slowly losing their “popularity” abroad, while skilled and professional workers are the most popular among other overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported yesterday.

Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said requests for production workers and other professionals now dominate the job orders coming in from overseas.

“We have deployed about 250,000 workers in the first three months of the year and the good news is that skilled and professional workers comprised the majority of those who left to work abroad,” Brion said.

He said service workers – including domestic Filipino workers – used to lead the pack of OFWs deployed for employment overseas.

Now, “production workers top the list of those who were deployed abroad, followed by professional workers and household workers is now third in rank,” Brion said.

According to Brion, professional and skilled workers compensated for the drop in hiring of Filipino domestic helpers overseas.

Earlier, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) recorded an 11 percent decline in the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) deployed abroad in the first quarter of 2007 compared to overseas deployment during the same period last year.

The significant drop in overall deployment in the first three months of the year was attributed to the new policy on hiring of Filipino domestic helpers abroad.

The new policy doubled to $400 the minimum monthly salary of Filipino domestic helpers which foreign employers, particularly those from the Middle East allegedly could not afford.

Local recruitment industry strongly protested the implementation of the new policy, claiming it could lead to virtual closure of the market for Filipino domestic helpers.

But Brion maintained that the drop in deployment is just temporary and that POEA continues to receive numerous job order for domestic helpers.

Meanwhile, the local recruitment industry has warned of a further drop in overseas deployment due to the new hiring policy in Saudi Arabia, the largest market for Filipino workers.

Local recruitment leader said many Saudi-bound Filipino workers could secure visas because they failed to acquire “no objection certificates” from their former employers.

Last April 16, the Saudi government imposed a new policy requiring all Filipino workers to secure no objection certificates as part of entry requirements. Recruiters also claimed that they are no longer getting job order for domestic helpers because of the new POEA policy contrary to the DOLE report.

By: Mayen Jaymalin, Philippine Star: 4/23/2007