Government will not take over recruitment industry – POEA

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) yesterday maintained that the government has no intention of taking over the country’s booming recruitment industry.

“The POEA limits its recruitment to service the manpower of foreign government clients only and the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of Filipino workers will continue to be serviced by the private recruitment agencies licensed by POEA,” POEA chief Rosalinda Baldoz said.

She added that the number of workers deployed by POEA through its government placement branch barely reaches three percent of the one million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) deployed annually.

“The policy is for the government not to compete directly with the private sector, which is expected to deliver the target of one million decent overseas jobs a year,” Baldoz said.

Baldoz issued the statement in reaction to claims by local recruitment leaders that the government is trying to take away from the private sector the task of deploying Filipino workers abroad.

Recruitment industry officials said the POEA’s efforts to forge a government-to-government deployment of Filipino workers will only lead to a drop in the number of OFWs hired abroad.

Since POEA is not expected to handle recruitment on a large scale, Baldoz said, it only recruits for a limited number of clients covered by bilateral agreements.

She also stressed that the government’s agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) does not prohibit private recruitment agencies from deploying workers in the oil-rich country.

Baldoz, however, warned that POEA shall remain vigilant in managing overseas employment of Filipinos and will always be ready to intervene in malpractices of recruitment agencies.   – Mayen Jaymalin, Philippine Star