Taiwan has still recorded the highest number of Filipino workers displaced by the global financial crisis out of the 5,774 who lost their jobs as of February, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) yesterday.
 
Citing the latest displacement report, Labor and Employment Secretary Marianito Roque said at least 4,197 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were laid-off in Taiwan since October 2008.
 
The DoLE official said the displaced OFWs were employed to the electronics, metal works, and semiconductor industries in the host country and they had returned home recently.
 
Of the number of those laid off,  897 Filipino workers  have reportedly started undergoing conciliation, with 544 of the cases already settled with the amount totaling P11.4 million
 
The same data showed that 17 more labor-receiving countries retrenched Filipino workers as a result of the economic downturn. Most of them were either Middle East or Asian countries.  
 
Filipino workers did not escape the brunt of the crisis in United Arab Emirates’ service industry where 729 OFWs lost their jobs, followed by 108 Filipinos working in oil and gas industries of Canada.
 
Macau likewise remains vulnerable to the crisis with the retrenchment of 155 Filipino construction and hotel workers. Other affected countries include UK, Qatar, Japan, Poland, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Greece, Russia, Singapore, among others.
 
Roque said more companies here and abroad have reduced the work periods of their employees under the flexible work scheme instead of resorting to layoffs because of the global financial crisis.
 
He also pointed out that one to 100 is the ratio of OFWs who have lost their jobs and the employment opportunities that await them abroad, an indication that the impact of the meltdown is still within manageable levels.
 
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) still has a balance of 477,654 job orders as of February and these are waiting to be filled up by OFWs with appropriate skills.
 
“DoLE is closely working with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to address the job mismatch and need for skills training and retooling to fill up the overseas job vacancies,” he said.

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