The deployment of overseas Filipino workers is said to possibly continue to drop in 2020 as statistics show a consistent decline of OFW deployment year on year since 2017.

According to recruitment and migration expert Emmanuel S. Geslani, the huge drop of overseas deployment indicates a continuing downtrend as data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed that OFW deployment in 2017 dropped by about 13.19 percent and was followed by another decrease by 33.34 percent in the following year.

Data also showed that the Philippines was able to deploy 2,112,331 OFW in 2016. In 2017, the number dropped to only 2,044,877 and continued to slow down to only 1,363,085 in 2018.

Despite the absence of available figures from the POEA for 2019 to show the decline, “if economic developments in major markets for OFW in 2019 are to be studied, then there is basis to declare that 2020 deployment will not increase any further,” Geslani said.

He added that this is due to the flat economies of major oil markets like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar, while Hong Kong went through a tumultuous year with tourism going down and Taiwan’s assembly of Apple iPhones slightly decreased.

“These are the top five labor markets for OFWs for the longest time,” Geslani pointed out.

To note, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III wants to decrease deployment of OFW to Saudi Arabia by 10 percent to pressure the Kingdom to settle the unpaid claims of 11,000 workers who were laid off in 2014 to 2016 due to the plunge of lower oil prices.

“Decreasing the number of household service workers to KSA by 10 percent will mean fewer opportunities for than 5,000 impoverished women from unprivileged sector of some areas in Mindanao and Visayas,” Geslani said.

Further, he also noted how the deployment of new hires dropped by nine percent in 2018 compared to the 2017 new hires and compared to 2016 as much as 72 percent.

“(This is) a clear indication that deployment of OFW is dropping each year,” he stressed.

Geslani also said that further analysis of the data shows a very large drop in rehires in 2018 of 606,665 to 1,136,334 in 2017 that is quite significant.

“Meaning that the decrease in rehires indicates fewer OFW were rehired and those who finished their contracts were not rehired and did not return to their jobsites,” he noted.

While the recruitment sector has started the deployment of skilled workers to Japan by the fourth quarter, 2019 and early 2020 as the Japanese government has issued the guidelines for the entry of Filipinos into 14 identified areas of work that OFW can enter Japan on visas which will allow a maximum of 5 years stay.

The processing of new job orders for skilled workers, according to Geslani, is still at snail’s pace.