OFWs unaffected by global crunch, Arroyo says

MANILA, Philippines - Most of the more than 8 million Filipinos working overseas have not been affected yet by the global financial storm, but a contingency plan has been cobbled together for possible layoffs, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said Wednesday.

The workers are regarded as the country's financial backbone, with the earnings they send home — $14.45 billion last year — accounting for 10 percent of gross domestic product in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation of 90 million people.

The bulk of them are in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the United States, mostly working as nurses, laborers, construction workers and maids.

Arroyo told a Manila business conference that reports by labor officials showed no displacement so far of overseas Filipino workers "related to the financial crisis." The government has prepared a plan to monitor for any sign of layoffs or a drop in labor demand, with Philippine embassies being asked to keep lists of the workers for potential rapid assistance, Arroyo said.

"We will register our workers so we can get track of them and we will redeploy them to emerging labor markets," Arroyo said. "We continue to identify and develop new market niches."

Philippine officials are eyeing about 90,000 new jobs in the next few years in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Guam, a Western Pacific territory where US forces plan to transfer a regional military base from Japan, Arroyo said.

As of last December, 32 percent of Filipinos working outside the country are in the U.S., most of them as permanent residents, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.

A large number of Filipino workers are skilled or semiskilled laborers in construction projects in the Middle East who remain in demand due to the continued building boom in the Persian Gulf countries. Filipino health workers still are desired in the U.S. and other parts of the world, Foreign Undersecretary for Migrant Affairs Esteban Conejos said.

Most vulnerable, he said, are unskilled workers like domestic helpers — most of whom are deployed in the Middle East, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The Philippines deploys about 100,000 domestic helpers abroad yearly. - AP

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