Great Info: Close to 2M OFW's hired in 2012

By Mayen Jaymalin, The Philippine Star, on June 5th, 2013

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino workers have remained popular among foreign employers.
Despite economic slump and nationalization policies in some countries, close to two million Filipino workers managed to find employment overseas last year.

Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed that a total of 1.8 million Filipinos were deployed to various countries in 2012.
Filipino household service workers (HSWs) accounted for the bulk of those hired abroad, with a total of 155,831 followed by registered nurses with 15,655.

Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East hired the greatest number of workers even while their governments require employers to hire local workers.

JobStreet. Com, the leading jobsite in the country, projected that deployment of Filipino workers will continue to go up in 2013 and the coming years.

Caroline Enriquez, Jobstreet.Com marketing manager, said service workers and professional workers would continue to be in demand in various countries abroad.

“A survey we conducted among 100 licensed recruitment agencies also indicated that Middle Eastern countries have the most number of hirings,” Enriquez disclosed.
Enriquez noted that more than 40,000 overseas jobs are posted in their website daily and about 1.5 million Filipino jobseekers search their site daily to look for employment abroad.
Saudi Arabia alone has close to 30,000 job openings while Qatar posted about 9,000 jobs and United Arab Emirates (UAE) with about 5,000 jobs, Enriquez said.

POEA chief Hans Cacdac said as overseas employment continues to increase, illegal recruiters have also resorted to different means, including use of social media to dupe jobseekers.
Just recently, he said, he discovered on facebook an alleged account of Canadian immigration which is offering various overseas jobs.
“I thinks it’s a form of illegal recruitment, so I have ordered our anti-illegal recruitment team to look into it and see what can we do about it,” he said.
To control illegal recruitment, POEA and JobStreets .com have joined forces to help jobseekers find employment overseas through proper and legal means.

Majority of those who seek employment abroad use online job search and Jobstreet.Com can help by listing only safe and real overseas employment.

Enriquez said they require employers who advertise job opportunities in their website to submit copies of their POEA license, approved POEA job orders aside from other government permits.
Cacdac said many Filipinos are being misled into thinking that they can work abroad even if they do not have the necessary skills as long as they were given the plane ticket.

“But that is not the right and legal way, those seeking employment abroad must abide by the procedures,” he said.

Mayen Jaymalin, The Philippine Star