Lowly paid workers sending higher remittances

MANILA, Philippines – Domestic helpers and other lowly paid overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are actually sending home more remittances than the highly paid ones.

The Institute for Migration and Development Issues (IMDI) reported that contrary to the claim of the government, household and service workers and men in production have been the country’s top dollar senders.

“Based on government data, those who are referred to as low-skilled overseas workers have been the Philippines’ top remitters for the past years,” IMDI disclosed.

According to IMDI, domestic workers, who also account for the biggest number of Filipinos deployed overseas, are the leading remitters even if they may have earned smaller salaries and send home lesser amounts of money compared to other overseas workers.

“They (low-skilled workers) remit frequently (though in lesser amounts), they also try out micro-to-small enterprises, and had to repay debts incurred prior to their migration overseas,” IMDI’s policy brief wrote.

IMDI further noted that male plant and machine operators and assemblers, male tradespeople and related workers, and unskilled workers are the country’s top remitters.

Citing the annual Survey on Overseas Filipinos of the National Statistics Office, IMDI reported that Filipino male plant and machine operators and assemblers have remitted P14.543 billion in 2007, up from P7.927 billion in 2001.

“These workers were the top remitters from 2001 to 2004 and in 2007,” IMDI noted.

Trades and related workers who are male were the top remitters in the 2006 with remittances of P13.103 billion.

Female laborers and unskilled workers sent home P13.082 billion in 2007, up from P6.452 in 2001.

Female service workers doing domestic work are the leading overseas workers by total number based on 15 years of data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on deployed new-hire overseas workers by gender, skill, and country of destination.

POEA data showed that female “domestic helpers and related household workers” number 931,289, female “choreographers and dancers” number 366,359, and female “composers, musicians and singers” are 235,348 strong.

Low-skilled or semi-skilled overseas workers’ regular remittance transfers that benefit their immediate families make them the “major driver of the country’s remittance economy,” IMDI said.

IMDI recommended measures to support and protect the rights and welfare of these low-skilled workers, including providing access to various forms of legal redress when these workers get abused.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) had attributed the increasing remittances from Filipino workers abroad to the growing number of Filipino professionals deployed overseas. –Mayen Jaymalin, Philippine Star