Pinoys losing jobs in Japan

In Manila, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said a number of Filipino workers in Japan have lost their jobs as a result of the twin calamities.

Labor Undersecretary Danilo Cruz said they received a report that 16 Filipino welders employed at a ship building company Isinomaki in Miyagi prefecture were rendered jobless after the tsunami destroyed their company.

“The Yamanishi Corp. employing the Filipinos folded up, but only one of the 16 have expressed desire to return home while the rest said they want to stay to look for new employment,” Cruz said. “The workers were unable to complete their contract because of the recent calamity. This is the first report of displacement that we have received from Japan so far.”

Although the number of retrenched workers could still go up in the next few days, Cruz expressed optimism that the disaster would have minimal impact on the employment of Filipino workers in that country.

He said 20,000 Filipino sailors on board Japanese-owned vessels were not based in Japan and are unlikely to be affected.

He said majority of Filipinos in Japan were employed in ship building and manufacturing companies.

“The area hit by the quake and tsunami is an agricultural and not an industrial area, thus the disaster won’t have a big impact on our workers,” Cruz said.

He said about 6,000 Filipino workers are currently employed in ship building and manufacturing companies. Majority of the over 200,000 Filipinos in Japan are already permanent residents.

The Philippines used to deploy an average of 80,000 Filipino entertainers to Japan annually and when the government there imposed visa restrictions years ago, some of them married Japanese nationals and became permanent residents. –Pia Lee-Brago (The Philippine Star)