January 22, 2007
Updated 18:23:25 (Mla time)
MANILA -- More than one million Filipino workers ranging from domestic helpers to doctors, engineers and pilots joined the growing army of Filipinos employed overseas last year, according to official data.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) says more than eight million Filipinos, about one tenth of the country's population of 86 million, were working overseas last year.
The Philippines has become one of the world's biggest exporters of workers, whose income now plays a central role in the country's economy.
In the 11 months to November last year remittances sent home by overseas workers totaled $11.44 billion, about 10 percent of gross domestic product, according to data from the central bank.
The Philippines has become one of the world's biggest exporters of workers and now constitutes one of the biggest sectors of the country's economy.
A recent Asian Development Bank report put the real figure (money not declared) in the $14 billion to $21 billion range -- which dwarfs the $2billion the country received last year in foreign direct investment.
Attracted by higher wages, the exodus is fast draining the Philippines of its skilled professional workforce such as teachers and nurses.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) nurses and other medical workers are leaving the Philippines at the rate of at least 15,000 a year for better-paying jobs abroad, threatening the country's health infrastructure.
WHO country representative Jean Marc Olive warned that the exodus was expected to persist until at least 2015, with annual demand for medical workers in the United States and Europe estimated to be about 800,000.
In sectors such as aviation, pilots and engineers are being poached to meet the demand of the world's rapidly expanding airline industry.
Some 250,447 Filipinos make up one of the biggest sectors of the world's merchant navy, while in countries like Hong Kong and Singapore they constitute the bulk of domestic workers.
The United States is the world's biggest employer with 2.7 million Filipinos, as of December 2004.
Figures for 2005 and 2006 have yet to be compiled.
The Middle East employed 1.6 million Filipinos, with one million employed in Saudi Arabia alone in sectors ranging from the oil and gas industries, to building, technology and health care.
According to government data, Filipinos are employed in 194 countries and territories around the world from tiny Palau in the Pacific to Equatorial Guinea in Africa.
Filipinos can be found dealing cards in the casinos of Macau and even the head cook in the White House is a Filipino.
http://services.inquirer.net/express/07/01/23/html_output/xmlhtml/20070122-44884-xml.html
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