061807: Fund firms track OFWs moving to newer markets

By Vic Sollorano

Senior Editor

OVERSEAS Filipino Workers, or OFWs, will continue to evolve, their numbers growing outside the traditional markets like the US, Middle East, Europe and Asia, as more Filipinos go abroad in search of economic opportunities. As traditional destinations lose their allure, and as employers pay less, OFWs will look for other markets to sell their skills. Patricia Z. Riingen, Western Union Financial Services (HK) Ltd. vice president for the Philippines, has noted the emerging trend over the last five years. She said more OFWs have been eyeing the Pacific Islands, like the Marianas, Palau and Saipan. The real emerging market for OFWs, however, will likely be the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, and Africa, Riingen said. The CIS and Africa remain largely untapped by Filipinos looking for better pay. There are OFWs in Nigeria who have been kidnapped for ransom by gunmen, but the numbers remain sketchy. While money, the US dollar in particular, remains the strongest motivation for millions of Filipinos to leave their comfort zones in the Philippines and risk the uncertainties of working in a foreign land, it is their resiliency and their willingness to go that is keeping the Philippine labor market quite active. An estimated 8 million Filipinos, or 8 percent of the population, are working abroad, and sending remittances back home to send their children to school and buy real estate, stimulating consumer spending and buoying the peso against the dollar. Money remitted by OFWs in April rose to P1.2 billion, or 32.6-percent higher from a year earlier, according to latest data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. The numbers follow a 26-percent gain in March. OFWs sent back home a total of $4.7 billion in the first four months, up 26.1 percent from a year earlier. There were also 343,397 Filipinos who left for abroad in search of greener pastures during the first four months of the year, according to the central bank statement. The funds coming from OFWs have also kept inflation at bay. All this is good for the economy, uplifting the lives of Filipinos who are left behind, said Riingen, formerly an executive director at the Asian Development Bank before joining one of the world’s largest remittance companies. The downside, Riingen noted, is the brain drain and the social and psychological problems, like depression, which afflict those left behind by the OFW.

 

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