BATANGAS, Philippines, Dec 18 (IPS) - The global financial crisis may have dealt a severe blow to Filipino migrant workers, thousands of whom lost their jobs and fell into debt. But public schoolteacher Melinda Mendoza does not see this impact at all -- at least not within the four walls of her classroom.
On the contrary, Mendoza, 45, is bothered no end by her pupils’ ostentatious display of opulence in a poor rural setting, where luxury is atypical.
"They have huge allowances," says the teacher of 21 years in the government-run Pulong Anahao Elementary School, located in the town of Mabini here in Batangas province, a two-hour drive south of Manila.
On top of that, the students own electronic gadgets like mobile phones that are no match to those of a public school teacher like Mendoza. She earns a measly few thousands of pesos a month, hardly enough to buy a high-end unit that is a status symbol in this South-east Asian country, at least 30 percent of whose 90 million people live in poverty.
Mendoza says about half of her students are children of migrant workers, a great majority of whom work in Italy as domestic helpers, caregivers, nannies or factory workers.
These children’s parents earn what they can never earn in the Philippines, which has become the world’s largest exporter of human labour after its workers began going overseas in droves in the seventies. Today, Filipino domestic workers in Italy earn 60,000 to 80,000 pesos (1,287 to 1,717 U.S. dollars), or a lot more, a month.
"There is dependence on remittances among families," says Ricardo Casco, national officer for labour migration support of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Based on 2007 data from the World Bank, the Philippines ranks fourth globally in terms of remittances received, next to India, China and Mexico. In 2007, its remittances reached a whopping 14.45 billion dollars, up from only 103 million U.S. dollars in 1975.
Like many Filipino workers abroad, those in Italy were not spared by the crisis late last year that have since forced many offshore companies either to close shop or cut production, says Estrella Dizon-Añonuevo, executive director of Atikha Overseas Workers and Communities Initiatives.
A migrant worker’s monthly take of 1,500 euros (2,150 dollars) in Italy was reduced by half as a result of the crisis. Remittances to families in the Philippines in some instances dwindled by 15 to 20 percent at the height of the downturn, she says.
Yet, many Filipino workers scrimped and saved to ensure that they maintained the same level of financial support they had been giving to their families, says Añonuevo, whose NGO conducts financial literacy among migrant workers as part of its advocacy.
"There was belt-tightening among migrants," she points out. Some were forced to live with fellow workers to save on rent and keep money that otherwise should have gone to their own basic needs.
But Añonuevo also says the hardships these migrant workers endured hardly ever figured in discussions between migrant parents and their children in the Philippines that are often held through today’s modern technologies, including the Internet.
It was not uncommon to hear of Filipinos holding down several part-time jobs at the same time in order to continue sending remittances home. "What is the purpose of spending the best years of your life anyway?" asks IOM’s Casco.
This is why schoolteacher Mendoza hardly sees signs of migrant parents’ economic problems affecting her students’ lifestyles. Every day, in fact, she sees how the class divide plays out in her classroom.
At lunch breaks, she says, one can see who the children of overseas Filipino workers are – or OFW, as they are commonly called in the Philippines – and who are not. They have packed lunches and snacks – and money to buy more food in the school canteen – while many of the latter subsist on so little or none at all.
"I usually tell my students to share their food with those of their classmates who have no food," she says.
Mendoza worries that her students exemplify a materialistic bent born of a culture that has become dependent on remittances sent by their migrant- worker parents.
The village of Anahao, which has a population of less than a thousand, has benefitted quite a lot from the wave of migration for labour.
This was especially so in the nineties, when a village woman, unable to land a job even if she was a college graduate, packed her bags and left for Italy to work as a domestic helper. It did not take long before others followed in her footsteps, literally, inspired by her example and the fortunes that going overseas seemed to have brought her.
Soon, Anahao itself began to change. European-style mansions replaced wooden structures typical of a rural setting, earning it the moniker ‘Little Italy’. Farming was the main source of villagers’ income until the 90s, when families became entirely dependent on remittances and gave up ploughing.
Today, 15 percent of Mabini town’s residents works overseas. Seventy-two percent of them work in Italy, 10 percent in the Middle East while the rest is in the United States, Asia and elsewhere in the world.
Within and outside the village of Anahao and other parts of Mabini, one can hardly miss the telltale signs of a rural town that has tasted progress. Many more concrete houses are being built, expensive vehicles being driven around – among others to ferry children to school such as Mendoza’s – and private schools whose total enrollment far exceeds those of state-owned schools, because migrant parents equate them with better education.
"They even go to expensive hospitals," says Esperanza Balita, a municipal employee who was once a migrant worker herself.
Realty property taxes, an indicator of land and home ownership, have nearly doubled over the last decade, from 17 million pesos in 1998 to 31 million pesos (365,000 to 665,378 dollars) in the first quarter of this year.
Meantime, the outflow of migrant workers continues from a country that already has some 10 percent of its population working overseas in 190 countries. In 2008, at least 1.3 million Filipinos left for overseas work. Local communities worry about the continued social cost of migration, regardless of how hard times are putting great pressure on migrant parents overseas.
Village chief Raymundo Magsino, in an interview with IPS, says a number of youth in his community have dropped out of school, not for lack of resources as is often the case in many poverty-stricken areas of the country, and certainly not because of the economic crunch, but for sheer lack of interest.
Many young people here know they will be going to Italy anyway to join their parents, who, in less than a year of working there, provided they already have a working visa, are entitled to petition and have their children join them before they turn 18, explains Magsino. There, they can pursue their education or take on jobs common among Filipino migrants.
The attraction of leaving the Philippines is so strong that offers of free livelihood training –- so that they are productive while waiting to join their parents –- hardly had any takers, the former police chief rues. Yet these young people while away their time playing ‘tong-its’ –- a popular numbers game in the Philippines – or chatting on their computers or in some Internet shop.
Mabini mayor Nilo Villanueva has far bigger concerns -- and they are not about the impact of the financial crisis. "The usual close relationship between parents and children" is gone, he says in a report accompanying the results of a study conducted by his office on migration in his town.
This has been manifested in an increasing number of out-of-school youth, reported cases of rape, annulment of marriage, and a host of other social concerns that, directly or directly, may be attributed to labour migration.
Mendoza, the elementary schoolteacher, shares Villanueva’s concern. One of her pupils, whose parents work in Italy, have stopped coming to school, and she knows that this has nothing to do with the financial crisis. - Tess Bacalla*, Inter Press Service News Agency, Saturday, December 19, 2009 12:00 GMT
(*This feature was produced by IPS Asia-Pacific under a series on the impact of the global economic crisis on children and young people, in partnership with UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific.)(END/2009)
Showing posts with label Financial Crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Financial Crisis. Show all posts
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Dubai OFWs in face of emirate’s credit crisis
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—With the repercussions of Dubai’s worst financial crisis still hanging thick in the air like lost secrets, life for most Filipinos working in this Middle Eastern cosmopolitan enclave goes on, their resilience hanging tough against yet another litmus test.
Christopher Benecio, a 30-year-old civil engineer from Roxas City, Panay came to Dubai November last year along with four other Filipino engineers. At the time, Dubai was already beginning to feel the effect of the global recession as companies started downsizing and retrenching in bulk.
By March the following year, all three of Benecio’s batch mates had already been terminated, with the first to lose his job in January.
Benecio has gone back to the Philippines, having left Dubai on December 5 this year on a paid vacation. But, he said, given the situation of his employer (Arif & Bintoak Consulting Architects and Engineers), he said he might opt to work for his previous employer, Megawide Construction in Makati, Metro Manila.
“We were getting fewer and fewer projects,” Benecio said, adding that Arif & Bintoak has resorted to implementing a one-month forced unpaid leave to cut cost. “If there was still no project after that period, it’s another forced leave or you can choose to be terminated,” he added. This, however, could not immediately be confirmed from company officials.
Prior to implementing a forced leave, the company cut down salaries of its employees by 10 percent and took away benefits, according to Benecio.
Moreover, he said, the situation at Arif & Bintoak is uncertain. “You don’t know when you’d finally get your notice of termination. It’s very difficult to work under that situation,” he said. “So why go back?”
Benecio did not divulge how much he was getting; he said he was able to save just enough to keep him and his family—a housewife and two children aged six and four—going during the transition to his old job when he returns home.
Benecio said he has submitted his resume to several companies in other countries and was awaiting reply.
Dubai’s construction sector was hardest hit by the global recession as the emirate’s real estate bubble burst. This being a result of what financial gurus said was the reckless and unsustainable lending practices arising from the deregulation and securitization of real estate mortgages in the United States. These mortgage-backed securities reinforced risky lending practices and, in the process, fed a global speculative real estate bubble.
Arif & Bintoak Consulting Architects and Engineers, which was established in 1975, has a portfolio that includes large-scale urban developments and had reported an annual project value of approximately $490 million.
Unlike Benecio, however, 58-year-old Alfredo Ranin, a former seaman who is now quality control officer at Wartsila Middle East and due to retire in 2011, said he’ll finish his remaining two years with the company and go home where, he said, work is also waiting for him. Home is Orion, Bataan, where his housewife, five children, and five grandchildren are.
Ranin, who has been in Dubai since 1992, said Wartsila UAE is “still busy” providing services to various ship owners, including commercial ones needing dry docking.
He said several fellow OFWs have left Wartsila UAE, apparently to dodge the effects of the ongoing crisis. “They have sought better employment opportunities at another Wartsila operation elsewhere or at a different company.”
“I’m staying. I’ll finish the two years then head home,” Ranin said.
Established in 1834 and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Wartsila manufactures large diesel and gas engines for ships and power generation companies. In 2008 its total workforce was 18,810 spread in several countries across the globe.
Twenty-four-year-old Katrina “Kate” Oquialda, for her part, first arrived in Dubai on March 29, 2008 on a visit visa. She found a job in June of that year as a sales merchandiser. She quit in December 2008. Failing to find a new job, she went home in March this year, and came back in August, again on a visit visa.
All in a month’s time upon her arrival, she found a job as a hotel receptionist, but resigned because she found a better-paying one as waitress at a beach bar, and then resigned again because the third one—cashier at a high-end candy and chocolate shop Candylicious—is “much, much better,” she said.
Candylicious is located in what has been hyped as the biggest mall in the world—Dubai Mall, a $20-billion project that has a wall-sized aquarium and about 1,200 shops. It opened in November last year.
Oquialda, whose family lives in Pasay, said it was tougher looking for a job in Dubai earlier this year when the effects of the global recession was at its height than it is in the past few months. “There were more job opportunities. In fact, I was able to find three in only a month’s time,” she said.
Upon her return to Dubai, Oquialda, obviously a risk-taker, had about $1,000, that, she said, her mother gave her, and which she used for the rent, utilities, and food during the time she was job-hunting. With the high cost of living in Dubai, $1,000 (or about 3,672) could only last for barely two months.
Oquialda said she’ll continue taking her chances in Dubai. “It’s a lot more difficult to find a job in the Philippines than it is here,” she said.
Arnel Sanchez, who holds a degree in accountancy with earned units in MBA and MPA arrived in Dubai on January1, 2009 to try his luck. He came on a spouse visa arranged by his wife, Mary Grace, an architect by profession working currently as senior designer at Josef Gartner GmbH-Dubai.
Sanchez was able to secure employment as purchase officer at a steel company in the Dubai Investment Park, a free trade zone, around August. He, however, quit after a month when a friend convinced him to transfer to another company which has a better offer; nothing came of it.
“I thought I would be able to move in to the new company, but nay. Now, I’m back looking for another job. That episode taught me a lesson—be contented with what you have,” he said, noting that in these trying Dubai times, the best way to go is stay where you are and weather it.
Sanchez said it’s difficult to look for a job that fits his mold. “They (prospective employers) ask for a driver’s license and ‘UAE experience,’” he explained.
Being a purchase officer, Sanchez needs mobility and, therefore, a driver’s license. It takes months in classroom lecture, driving lessons, and actual driving tests; and, at times, up to 10,000 dirhams (P130,000) to obtain a driver’s license in Dubai because of strict government measures.
Seldom does one pass an actual test on first try; it usually takes four to five attempts. A student who has failed is required to undergo lecture again before going through another actual test. The repeated lecture and actual test require another round of payments, which explains the prohibitive total cost.
Jobless as he is, Sanchez’s chances of getting a driver’s license is nil—he doesn’t have the money. Despite this, his hopes remain high. “Despite the challenges of the current economy here in Dubai and all over the world, I still don’t think it’s a bad time to be looking for a job. Demand is still high and good offers can be found at plenty of places,” he said, adding that he will also opt to apply for other jobs.
Josef Gartner GmbH—Dubai is part of the Gartner Group, which is headquartered in Germany and is engaged in steel and glass architectural structures with offices in 11 countries.
Sanchez and his wife have a five-year-old daughter staying with Sanchez’s parents in Davao.
According to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dubai has the most number of OFWs from among the country’s seven emirates.
The UAE, as of 2008 has 299,241 OFWs, of which 167,264 were in Dubai; 85,999 in Abu Dhabi; 28,856 in Sharjah; 9,824 in Raz al Khaima; 4,914 in Aj Man; 1,829 in Um al Qain, and 555 in Fujairah, according to MFA.
There were no immediately available official figures on the number of OFWs that have gone home due to the recession and Dubai’s debt woes.
On November 25, 2009, Dubai requested a freeze on debt repayments by its largest and most indebted group, Dubai World, liable for $59 billion. This sent shock waves in stock markets around the world as equities dropped and fears of a looming collapse of the emirate’s economy sprang forth.
This reporter had since repeatedly tried to reach Philippine Ambassador to UAE Grace Princesa, and Consul General Noel Servigon for their comments—but received no reply.- Jojo Dass, INQUIRER.net, December 13, 2009
Christopher Benecio, a 30-year-old civil engineer from Roxas City, Panay came to Dubai November last year along with four other Filipino engineers. At the time, Dubai was already beginning to feel the effect of the global recession as companies started downsizing and retrenching in bulk.
By March the following year, all three of Benecio’s batch mates had already been terminated, with the first to lose his job in January.
Benecio has gone back to the Philippines, having left Dubai on December 5 this year on a paid vacation. But, he said, given the situation of his employer (Arif & Bintoak Consulting Architects and Engineers), he said he might opt to work for his previous employer, Megawide Construction in Makati, Metro Manila.
“We were getting fewer and fewer projects,” Benecio said, adding that Arif & Bintoak has resorted to implementing a one-month forced unpaid leave to cut cost. “If there was still no project after that period, it’s another forced leave or you can choose to be terminated,” he added. This, however, could not immediately be confirmed from company officials.
Prior to implementing a forced leave, the company cut down salaries of its employees by 10 percent and took away benefits, according to Benecio.
Moreover, he said, the situation at Arif & Bintoak is uncertain. “You don’t know when you’d finally get your notice of termination. It’s very difficult to work under that situation,” he said. “So why go back?”
Benecio did not divulge how much he was getting; he said he was able to save just enough to keep him and his family—a housewife and two children aged six and four—going during the transition to his old job when he returns home.
Benecio said he has submitted his resume to several companies in other countries and was awaiting reply.
Dubai’s construction sector was hardest hit by the global recession as the emirate’s real estate bubble burst. This being a result of what financial gurus said was the reckless and unsustainable lending practices arising from the deregulation and securitization of real estate mortgages in the United States. These mortgage-backed securities reinforced risky lending practices and, in the process, fed a global speculative real estate bubble.
Arif & Bintoak Consulting Architects and Engineers, which was established in 1975, has a portfolio that includes large-scale urban developments and had reported an annual project value of approximately $490 million.
Unlike Benecio, however, 58-year-old Alfredo Ranin, a former seaman who is now quality control officer at Wartsila Middle East and due to retire in 2011, said he’ll finish his remaining two years with the company and go home where, he said, work is also waiting for him. Home is Orion, Bataan, where his housewife, five children, and five grandchildren are.
Ranin, who has been in Dubai since 1992, said Wartsila UAE is “still busy” providing services to various ship owners, including commercial ones needing dry docking.
He said several fellow OFWs have left Wartsila UAE, apparently to dodge the effects of the ongoing crisis. “They have sought better employment opportunities at another Wartsila operation elsewhere or at a different company.”
“I’m staying. I’ll finish the two years then head home,” Ranin said.
Established in 1834 and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Wartsila manufactures large diesel and gas engines for ships and power generation companies. In 2008 its total workforce was 18,810 spread in several countries across the globe.
Twenty-four-year-old Katrina “Kate” Oquialda, for her part, first arrived in Dubai on March 29, 2008 on a visit visa. She found a job in June of that year as a sales merchandiser. She quit in December 2008. Failing to find a new job, she went home in March this year, and came back in August, again on a visit visa.
All in a month’s time upon her arrival, she found a job as a hotel receptionist, but resigned because she found a better-paying one as waitress at a beach bar, and then resigned again because the third one—cashier at a high-end candy and chocolate shop Candylicious—is “much, much better,” she said.
Candylicious is located in what has been hyped as the biggest mall in the world—Dubai Mall, a $20-billion project that has a wall-sized aquarium and about 1,200 shops. It opened in November last year.
Oquialda, whose family lives in Pasay, said it was tougher looking for a job in Dubai earlier this year when the effects of the global recession was at its height than it is in the past few months. “There were more job opportunities. In fact, I was able to find three in only a month’s time,” she said.
Upon her return to Dubai, Oquialda, obviously a risk-taker, had about $1,000, that, she said, her mother gave her, and which she used for the rent, utilities, and food during the time she was job-hunting. With the high cost of living in Dubai, $1,000 (or about 3,672) could only last for barely two months.
Oquialda said she’ll continue taking her chances in Dubai. “It’s a lot more difficult to find a job in the Philippines than it is here,” she said.
Arnel Sanchez, who holds a degree in accountancy with earned units in MBA and MPA arrived in Dubai on January1, 2009 to try his luck. He came on a spouse visa arranged by his wife, Mary Grace, an architect by profession working currently as senior designer at Josef Gartner GmbH-Dubai.
Sanchez was able to secure employment as purchase officer at a steel company in the Dubai Investment Park, a free trade zone, around August. He, however, quit after a month when a friend convinced him to transfer to another company which has a better offer; nothing came of it.
“I thought I would be able to move in to the new company, but nay. Now, I’m back looking for another job. That episode taught me a lesson—be contented with what you have,” he said, noting that in these trying Dubai times, the best way to go is stay where you are and weather it.
Sanchez said it’s difficult to look for a job that fits his mold. “They (prospective employers) ask for a driver’s license and ‘UAE experience,’” he explained.
Being a purchase officer, Sanchez needs mobility and, therefore, a driver’s license. It takes months in classroom lecture, driving lessons, and actual driving tests; and, at times, up to 10,000 dirhams (P130,000) to obtain a driver’s license in Dubai because of strict government measures.
Seldom does one pass an actual test on first try; it usually takes four to five attempts. A student who has failed is required to undergo lecture again before going through another actual test. The repeated lecture and actual test require another round of payments, which explains the prohibitive total cost.
Jobless as he is, Sanchez’s chances of getting a driver’s license is nil—he doesn’t have the money. Despite this, his hopes remain high. “Despite the challenges of the current economy here in Dubai and all over the world, I still don’t think it’s a bad time to be looking for a job. Demand is still high and good offers can be found at plenty of places,” he said, adding that he will also opt to apply for other jobs.
Josef Gartner GmbH—Dubai is part of the Gartner Group, which is headquartered in Germany and is engaged in steel and glass architectural structures with offices in 11 countries.
Sanchez and his wife have a five-year-old daughter staying with Sanchez’s parents in Davao.
According to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dubai has the most number of OFWs from among the country’s seven emirates.
The UAE, as of 2008 has 299,241 OFWs, of which 167,264 were in Dubai; 85,999 in Abu Dhabi; 28,856 in Sharjah; 9,824 in Raz al Khaima; 4,914 in Aj Man; 1,829 in Um al Qain, and 555 in Fujairah, according to MFA.
There were no immediately available official figures on the number of OFWs that have gone home due to the recession and Dubai’s debt woes.
On November 25, 2009, Dubai requested a freeze on debt repayments by its largest and most indebted group, Dubai World, liable for $59 billion. This sent shock waves in stock markets around the world as equities dropped and fears of a looming collapse of the emirate’s economy sprang forth.
This reporter had since repeatedly tried to reach Philippine Ambassador to UAE Grace Princesa, and Consul General Noel Servigon for their comments—but received no reply.- Jojo Dass, INQUIRER.net, December 13, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Overseas Workers Prop Up Asia
By Philip Bowring
http://asiasentinel.com/
Friday, 11 September 2009
A half-dozen countries continue to feast off inward remittances despite the global downturn
Worker remittances to Asian countries have held up far better than expected during the global economic downturn. However, there are plenty of exceptions, gaps in the data and concerns that the negative response is being delayed. Employment is a lagging economic indicator, and migration data is further lagged.
According to a report by the US-based Migration Policy Institute, the major countries in Asia most reliant on remittances – Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines all experienced remittance growth in the first half of 2009, in the cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh by double digit amounts. The Philippines was in positive territory by only a small amount but even that was a creditable performance given the wide geographical distribution of its workers and greater relative numbers in badly hit western countries than in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, main destination for south Asian workers.
This record is in stark contrast to dramatic declines in remittances to Turkey and Poland as workers have had to leave recession-hit Western Europe for home. Other major sufferers have been Ecuador and Morocco – heavily reliant on work in Spain – Kenya and US-dependent Mexico where they were down by around 10 percent.
Although there have been some layoffs in Gulf countries due to the running down of the construction boom, employment in Saudi Arabia, the largest destination, has held up very well.
Not all the reasons for better than expected performance are comforting. One, according to the report, is that decisions on returning home are at least as much determined by conditions back home as by job opportunities in the receiving country. Another is that governments such as those of the Philippines and Bangladesh have stepped up efforts to send workers overseas, perhaps in the process resulting in a lowering of employment standards and wages.
President Arroyo urged the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to refocus its efforts from “regulation to full-blast development efforts”. New destinations for Bangladeshis include countries as diverse as Romania, Sudan and Algeria where workers’ rights may be even weaker than elsewhere.
In the case of Bangladesh, the numbers deployed overseas grew by 5 percent in 2008 to 875,000. That looks satisfactory but is a sharp slowdown on the growth of previous years. In 2009, the numbers are likely to be hit by new restrictions in Malaysia, which accounts for 10 percent of the total.
The comparative data from the Migration Institute also omits Indonesia so it is unclear how far problems in Malaysia have affected this major destination country for Indonesians.
The situation for migrant workers in northeast Asia is mixed. For example in Taiwan there have been big cutbacks in manufacturing work permits (mostly Vietnamese, Thai and Filipino) and construction (mostly Thai) but employment of care givers and maids (mostly Indonesian) continues to rise.
Indeed everywhere care giving and domestic work appear much more stable than other work, which would also account for the stability of remittances to the Philippines from otherwise hard-hit western Europe.
Japan has been sending home Nikkeijin (foreigners of Japanese descent, most Brazilian) and Korea reducing the numbers of ethnic Koreans from China.
Data for most of the recipient countries in Southeast Asia is scanty. Thailand announced that that it would not renew work permits for some 500,000 foreigners, most from Cambodia and Burma, but the actual state of affairs is cloudy and large numbers of undocumented workers remain there as in Malaysia.
The document devotes much space to China’s internal migration issues. It notes that most who returned to rural areas from the coastal cities hit by the export downturn could not find jobs so would likely move again at the first opportunity.
However it has no information on China’s own labor exports which anecdotal evidence suggests may have been rising as Chinese companies and official aid efforts have expanded at a rapid pace. According to the China Daily there are now about 1 million Chinese working overseas.
Looking ahead, the economic outlook is now much better than six months ago. The recovery of the oil price in particular bodes well for stability in employment in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. However it is not clear how many of the huge number of workers on three-year contracts will have to return on contract expiry and whether new deployment will continue to run ahead of returnees.
http://asiasentinel.com/
Friday, 11 September 2009
A half-dozen countries continue to feast off inward remittances despite the global downturn
Worker remittances to Asian countries have held up far better than expected during the global economic downturn. However, there are plenty of exceptions, gaps in the data and concerns that the negative response is being delayed. Employment is a lagging economic indicator, and migration data is further lagged.
According to a report by the US-based Migration Policy Institute, the major countries in Asia most reliant on remittances – Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines all experienced remittance growth in the first half of 2009, in the cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh by double digit amounts. The Philippines was in positive territory by only a small amount but even that was a creditable performance given the wide geographical distribution of its workers and greater relative numbers in badly hit western countries than in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, main destination for south Asian workers.
This record is in stark contrast to dramatic declines in remittances to Turkey and Poland as workers have had to leave recession-hit Western Europe for home. Other major sufferers have been Ecuador and Morocco – heavily reliant on work in Spain – Kenya and US-dependent Mexico where they were down by around 10 percent.
Although there have been some layoffs in Gulf countries due to the running down of the construction boom, employment in Saudi Arabia, the largest destination, has held up very well.
Not all the reasons for better than expected performance are comforting. One, according to the report, is that decisions on returning home are at least as much determined by conditions back home as by job opportunities in the receiving country. Another is that governments such as those of the Philippines and Bangladesh have stepped up efforts to send workers overseas, perhaps in the process resulting in a lowering of employment standards and wages.
President Arroyo urged the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to refocus its efforts from “regulation to full-blast development efforts”. New destinations for Bangladeshis include countries as diverse as Romania, Sudan and Algeria where workers’ rights may be even weaker than elsewhere.
In the case of Bangladesh, the numbers deployed overseas grew by 5 percent in 2008 to 875,000. That looks satisfactory but is a sharp slowdown on the growth of previous years. In 2009, the numbers are likely to be hit by new restrictions in Malaysia, which accounts for 10 percent of the total.
The comparative data from the Migration Institute also omits Indonesia so it is unclear how far problems in Malaysia have affected this major destination country for Indonesians.
The situation for migrant workers in northeast Asia is mixed. For example in Taiwan there have been big cutbacks in manufacturing work permits (mostly Vietnamese, Thai and Filipino) and construction (mostly Thai) but employment of care givers and maids (mostly Indonesian) continues to rise.
Indeed everywhere care giving and domestic work appear much more stable than other work, which would also account for the stability of remittances to the Philippines from otherwise hard-hit western Europe.
Japan has been sending home Nikkeijin (foreigners of Japanese descent, most Brazilian) and Korea reducing the numbers of ethnic Koreans from China.
Data for most of the recipient countries in Southeast Asia is scanty. Thailand announced that that it would not renew work permits for some 500,000 foreigners, most from Cambodia and Burma, but the actual state of affairs is cloudy and large numbers of undocumented workers remain there as in Malaysia.
The document devotes much space to China’s internal migration issues. It notes that most who returned to rural areas from the coastal cities hit by the export downturn could not find jobs so would likely move again at the first opportunity.
However it has no information on China’s own labor exports which anecdotal evidence suggests may have been rising as Chinese companies and official aid efforts have expanded at a rapid pace. According to the China Daily there are now about 1 million Chinese working overseas.
Looking ahead, the economic outlook is now much better than six months ago. The recovery of the oil price in particular bodes well for stability in employment in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. However it is not clear how many of the huge number of workers on three-year contracts will have to return on contract expiry and whether new deployment will continue to run ahead of returnees.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Less immigration but no big exodus
http://www.7days.ae
Tuesday 8 Sep, 2009
Emigration to Gulf states from South Asia is down, but there is no large-scale return of migrants, a study pub-lished yesterday showed.
The Migration Policy Inst-itute (MPI) study for the BBC World Service, found that “migrants have been laid off at high rates throughout the world, including construction workers from India in Dubai and other Gulf states”.
The study added that statistics on Indian migrant return were difficult to get, however, anecdotally, “experts say that there is no large-scale return migration... due to the crisis”.
“Counter to the widely held public perception, immigrants overwhelmingly are choosing to stay put in their adopted countries rather than return home despite very high unemployment and lack of jobs,” the research said.
MPI found that three Asian countries had seen their remittances grow in 2008 to 2009 - Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
However, around ten per cent of Bangladeshi migrants had been sent home from contracts in the Gulf, while many Filipino men on Middle Eastern construction projects had also returned home before the end of their contracts.
“South and East Asia have been spared the worst of the crisis and - although remittances are expected to slow somewhat in 2009 - they continue growing,” MPI said.
“Compared to the same period last year, remittances are growing at a rate of 23 per cent to Pakistan (faster than during the past three years), 16 per cent to Bangladesh (still down substantially from 2008), and three per cent to the Philippines (also down substantially from last year),” the institute added.
Tuesday 8 Sep, 2009
Emigration to Gulf states from South Asia is down, but there is no large-scale return of migrants, a study pub-lished yesterday showed.
The Migration Policy Inst-itute (MPI) study for the BBC World Service, found that “migrants have been laid off at high rates throughout the world, including construction workers from India in Dubai and other Gulf states”.
The study added that statistics on Indian migrant return were difficult to get, however, anecdotally, “experts say that there is no large-scale return migration... due to the crisis”.
“Counter to the widely held public perception, immigrants overwhelmingly are choosing to stay put in their adopted countries rather than return home despite very high unemployment and lack of jobs,” the research said.
MPI found that three Asian countries had seen their remittances grow in 2008 to 2009 - Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
However, around ten per cent of Bangladeshi migrants had been sent home from contracts in the Gulf, while many Filipino men on Middle Eastern construction projects had also returned home before the end of their contracts.
“South and East Asia have been spared the worst of the crisis and - although remittances are expected to slow somewhat in 2009 - they continue growing,” MPI said.
“Compared to the same period last year, remittances are growing at a rate of 23 per cent to Pakistan (faster than during the past three years), 16 per cent to Bangladesh (still down substantially from 2008), and three per cent to the Philippines (also down substantially from last year),” the institute added.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Worst of economic crisis over for Dubai: ruler
Apr 18, 2009
DUBAI (AFP) — Dubai's ruler insists his Gulf emirate has recovered from the worst of the fallout from the global economic crisis and has also defended the grandiose vision of the formerly booming city state.
"We have overcome the crisis with the least amount of losses," Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum, who is also United Arab Emirates prime minister, told Dubai's first e-press conference.
"For us in the United Arab Emirates, I can safely say that we have succeeded in containing the risks of the global financial crisis in record time," said Sheikh Mohammad.
His answers to journalists' questions were posted on the website www.uaepm.ae on Saturday.
Sheikh Mohammad put the recovery down to "the additional liquidity that the Abu Dhabi government pumped into the Emirates' banks" and the bond issuance of 20 billion dollars.
However, Sheikh Mohammad acknowledged that economic growth in the UAE would probably fall to around three percent in 2009, down from 7.4 percent last year. But he ruled out introducing income tax.
On the world crisis, he said: "I think the panic phase is over now, especially after the intervention of governments in many major countries to regulate financial and banking sectors, and the allocation of large sums of money to revitalise their economies."
As for Dubai itself, Sheikh Mohammad shrugged off comments that "the bubble" had burst on its dazzlingly rapid development.
"I keep hearing the expression of 'the bubble' for the past couple of decades. In my opinion, this bubble is found only in the minds of those who often keep repeating it and do not know its meaning," he said.
Sheikh Mohammad also brushed aside a spate of negative articles in the international media.
"The stereotypes are being brought up. It seems that any successful Arab model in economic development invites such negative treatment in the international media," he said.
The architect of Dubai's emergence on the world stage as a regional business, IT and leisure hub defended the emirate's achievements.
"We are not growing in order to be a model for its highest building in the world, best airport, and most luxurious hotel, and the largest seaport and man-made islands," he said.
"The Dubai model is beyond that... Dubai is an Arab city with scarce natural resources but with a clear vision of comprehensive development and social needs," he said.
It has "succeeded through investments in human resources, its unique geographical location and trade expertise."
DUBAI (AFP) — Dubai's ruler insists his Gulf emirate has recovered from the worst of the fallout from the global economic crisis and has also defended the grandiose vision of the formerly booming city state.
"We have overcome the crisis with the least amount of losses," Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum, who is also United Arab Emirates prime minister, told Dubai's first e-press conference.
"For us in the United Arab Emirates, I can safely say that we have succeeded in containing the risks of the global financial crisis in record time," said Sheikh Mohammad.
His answers to journalists' questions were posted on the website www.uaepm.ae on Saturday.
Sheikh Mohammad put the recovery down to "the additional liquidity that the Abu Dhabi government pumped into the Emirates' banks" and the bond issuance of 20 billion dollars.
However, Sheikh Mohammad acknowledged that economic growth in the UAE would probably fall to around three percent in 2009, down from 7.4 percent last year. But he ruled out introducing income tax.
On the world crisis, he said: "I think the panic phase is over now, especially after the intervention of governments in many major countries to regulate financial and banking sectors, and the allocation of large sums of money to revitalise their economies."
As for Dubai itself, Sheikh Mohammad shrugged off comments that "the bubble" had burst on its dazzlingly rapid development.
"I keep hearing the expression of 'the bubble' for the past couple of decades. In my opinion, this bubble is found only in the minds of those who often keep repeating it and do not know its meaning," he said.
Sheikh Mohammad also brushed aside a spate of negative articles in the international media.
"The stereotypes are being brought up. It seems that any successful Arab model in economic development invites such negative treatment in the international media," he said.
The architect of Dubai's emergence on the world stage as a regional business, IT and leisure hub defended the emirate's achievements.
"We are not growing in order to be a model for its highest building in the world, best airport, and most luxurious hotel, and the largest seaport and man-made islands," he said.
"The Dubai model is beyond that... Dubai is an Arab city with scarce natural resources but with a clear vision of comprehensive development and social needs," he said.
It has "succeeded through investments in human resources, its unique geographical location and trade expertise."
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dubai property giant sacks 500
Agence France-Presse INQUIRER.NET
Posted date: November 30, 2008
DUBAI--Dubai property giant Nakheel -- behind such grandiose projects as a one-kilometer tower and artificial palm-shaped islands -- said Sunday it has fired 500 staff because of the global financial crisis.
The government-controlled developer, one of the biggest employers in the booming Gulf emirate, also said it would be scaling back work on some of its projects.
"Approximately 15 percent of the total workforce, which amounts to 500 employees, was made redundant," it said in a statement, describing the move as "a responsible action in light of the current global market conditions."
It is the largest job cut to be announced in the wake of the global financial crisis in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates and in Dubai, a city of opulent hotels and shopping malls which hosts hundreds of thousands of foreign residents.
"We have the responsibility to adjust our short term business plans to accommodate the current global environment," said an unnamed spokesperson quoted in the statement.
"The redundancies are indeed regrettable, but a necessity dictated by operational requirements which are in turn dependent on demand," the spokesperson added.
Nakheel is in charge of developing several iconic projects in Dubai, including three palm-shaped man-made islands, only one of which is completed, and a cluster of islands in the shape of a map of the world.
It also announced last month a jaw-dropping plan to build a one-kilometer-high (3,280 feet) tower which would overshadow the still unfinished Burj Dubai, already the tallest on earth.
Nakheel also develops residential and commercial property, whose sales thrived after the sector was opened to foreign investors few years ago.
Dubai top officials insist that the emirate's real estate sector -- a major engine of economic growth in recent years -- will weather the global crisis, but investors appear to have lost confidence in the market which was until recently a great magnet for investments.
Posted date: November 30, 2008
DUBAI--Dubai property giant Nakheel -- behind such grandiose projects as a one-kilometer tower and artificial palm-shaped islands -- said Sunday it has fired 500 staff because of the global financial crisis.
The government-controlled developer, one of the biggest employers in the booming Gulf emirate, also said it would be scaling back work on some of its projects.
"Approximately 15 percent of the total workforce, which amounts to 500 employees, was made redundant," it said in a statement, describing the move as "a responsible action in light of the current global market conditions."
It is the largest job cut to be announced in the wake of the global financial crisis in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates and in Dubai, a city of opulent hotels and shopping malls which hosts hundreds of thousands of foreign residents.
"We have the responsibility to adjust our short term business plans to accommodate the current global environment," said an unnamed spokesperson quoted in the statement.
"The redundancies are indeed regrettable, but a necessity dictated by operational requirements which are in turn dependent on demand," the spokesperson added.
Nakheel is in charge of developing several iconic projects in Dubai, including three palm-shaped man-made islands, only one of which is completed, and a cluster of islands in the shape of a map of the world.
It also announced last month a jaw-dropping plan to build a one-kilometer-high (3,280 feet) tower which would overshadow the still unfinished Burj Dubai, already the tallest on earth.
Nakheel also develops residential and commercial property, whose sales thrived after the sector was opened to foreign investors few years ago.
Dubai top officials insist that the emirate's real estate sector -- a major engine of economic growth in recent years -- will weather the global crisis, but investors appear to have lost confidence in the market which was until recently a great magnet for investments.
Crisis affects Dubai migrant workers too
Agence France-Presse INQUIRER.NET
Posted date: February 15, 2009
DUBAI – Low-paid Asian workers who toil long days to build the skyscrapers of Dubai have become the latest victims of the global financial crisis as companies run short of business and money.
For many years, the Gulf emirate was a magnet for South Asian workers who fed the booming economy with cheap manpower – from cleaners and gardeners to skilled and unskilled builders.
A report issued earlier this month showed that $582 billion worth of building projects in the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, had been put on hold due to the slowdown. That was 45 percent of the total.
Arnold, a 26-year-old Filipino machine operator, found a job in a small aluminum factory only two months after arriving in Dubai last summer. But in January, he and six others from the 15-strong workforce were laid off.
"I am staying in Dubai trying to find another job," he said, pointing out that his previous employer lost a great deal of business when many construction projects ground to a halt, cutting demand for aluminum products.
Six years of spectacular growth in the UAE construction sector, mainly in Dubai, absorbed hundreds of thousands of workers, mostly from South Asia. That had a knock-on effect, creating further opportunities for migrants.
But the financial crisis, mainly in construction and related industries, is reversing that trend, forcing foreign workers to go home.
"The crisis is worse in the Philippines. We have no future there. We are looking for part-time jobs here, anything," Arnold told Agence France-Presse as he hung out with two friends who had also lost their jobs.
Christopher, a compatriot, said he has been in Dubai for around nine months working as a welder during the day and a barista in the evening.
He and his wife, who also works in a Dubai coffee shop, used to send 500 dirhams ($136) a month home, where their two kids were left behind.
Migrant workers send billions of dollars home every year. One money transfer firm, UAE Exchange, said its volume last year was $12 billion, most of it to India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.
Like Arnold, Christopher was working illegally in the hope that an employer would get him a work permit. Now he is searching desperately for anything.
But even for laborers who were brought to the UAE on a work visa to satisfy the needs of the once-booming economy, many are receiving the pink slip.
"Some 200 gardeners were sacked recently from our company" out of about 10,000 workers, said an Indian as he planted saplings in the garden of an elegant office building in Dubai.
"They told us the company does not have much work and is short of money," said the man in his mid-40s, refusing to give his name.
Two other colleagues, an Indian and a Bangladeshi, carried on trimming the hedge, appearing hesitant to say anything that might jeopardize their jobs.
"We are expecting to lose our jobs," said the man, who earns a meager 500 dirhams ($136) a month in return for 48 hours a week.
He lamented that two years ago he had to pay what was for him a fortune of around 10,000 dirhams ($2,725) to Indian intermediaries to get a job in Dubai.
Murukesan, an Indian cleaner, said his employer, a large cleaning and maintenance company, last week told workers who had completed at least two years of work to go home on four-month unpaid vacations.
"They said do not come back until we call you," he said with a faint smile, appearing content as he has completed only 18 months of his contract.
"In the past, workers were not taking vacations, even after four years of continuous work," he said, highlighting a huge work load in the immediate past.
It appears some of the unpaid "vacations" are simply a way of getting rid of people without having to pay them off. Under UAE law, workers laid off must be paid 21 days' salary for each of the first five years worked and a month's salary for every year after that.
"They are trying to find excuses to bypass the rules of terminating a contract," said Monir al-Zaman, labor attaché at the Bangladeshi embassy.
"Compensation should be paid if workers are being fired," he told AFP, adding that companies should resort to cutting overtime work and even reduce salaries before laying off workers.
In December, Khalfan al-Kaabi, a member of the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce board of directors, said up to 45 percent of construction workers could be laid off this year if private sector projects in the UAE were delayed or cancelled.
Zaman said he could not provide a figure on Bangladeshi workers having lost their jobs in the UAE, because the process is not done "formally".
He also pointed out that he noticed, during inspection visits to labor camps that many workers stayed in the UAE even if they were not being paid, in hope of finding work.
But poor unemployed workers cannot linger for long if jobs remain rare.
"Maybe this month I have to decide to stay or go ... because I don't have any money. Now I'm borrowing from friends," said Arnold.
Posted date: February 15, 2009
DUBAI – Low-paid Asian workers who toil long days to build the skyscrapers of Dubai have become the latest victims of the global financial crisis as companies run short of business and money.
For many years, the Gulf emirate was a magnet for South Asian workers who fed the booming economy with cheap manpower – from cleaners and gardeners to skilled and unskilled builders.
A report issued earlier this month showed that $582 billion worth of building projects in the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, had been put on hold due to the slowdown. That was 45 percent of the total.
Arnold, a 26-year-old Filipino machine operator, found a job in a small aluminum factory only two months after arriving in Dubai last summer. But in January, he and six others from the 15-strong workforce were laid off.
"I am staying in Dubai trying to find another job," he said, pointing out that his previous employer lost a great deal of business when many construction projects ground to a halt, cutting demand for aluminum products.
Six years of spectacular growth in the UAE construction sector, mainly in Dubai, absorbed hundreds of thousands of workers, mostly from South Asia. That had a knock-on effect, creating further opportunities for migrants.
But the financial crisis, mainly in construction and related industries, is reversing that trend, forcing foreign workers to go home.
"The crisis is worse in the Philippines. We have no future there. We are looking for part-time jobs here, anything," Arnold told Agence France-Presse as he hung out with two friends who had also lost their jobs.
Christopher, a compatriot, said he has been in Dubai for around nine months working as a welder during the day and a barista in the evening.
He and his wife, who also works in a Dubai coffee shop, used to send 500 dirhams ($136) a month home, where their two kids were left behind.
Migrant workers send billions of dollars home every year. One money transfer firm, UAE Exchange, said its volume last year was $12 billion, most of it to India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.
Like Arnold, Christopher was working illegally in the hope that an employer would get him a work permit. Now he is searching desperately for anything.
But even for laborers who were brought to the UAE on a work visa to satisfy the needs of the once-booming economy, many are receiving the pink slip.
"Some 200 gardeners were sacked recently from our company" out of about 10,000 workers, said an Indian as he planted saplings in the garden of an elegant office building in Dubai.
"They told us the company does not have much work and is short of money," said the man in his mid-40s, refusing to give his name.
Two other colleagues, an Indian and a Bangladeshi, carried on trimming the hedge, appearing hesitant to say anything that might jeopardize their jobs.
"We are expecting to lose our jobs," said the man, who earns a meager 500 dirhams ($136) a month in return for 48 hours a week.
He lamented that two years ago he had to pay what was for him a fortune of around 10,000 dirhams ($2,725) to Indian intermediaries to get a job in Dubai.
Murukesan, an Indian cleaner, said his employer, a large cleaning and maintenance company, last week told workers who had completed at least two years of work to go home on four-month unpaid vacations.
"They said do not come back until we call you," he said with a faint smile, appearing content as he has completed only 18 months of his contract.
"In the past, workers were not taking vacations, even after four years of continuous work," he said, highlighting a huge work load in the immediate past.
It appears some of the unpaid "vacations" are simply a way of getting rid of people without having to pay them off. Under UAE law, workers laid off must be paid 21 days' salary for each of the first five years worked and a month's salary for every year after that.
"They are trying to find excuses to bypass the rules of terminating a contract," said Monir al-Zaman, labor attaché at the Bangladeshi embassy.
"Compensation should be paid if workers are being fired," he told AFP, adding that companies should resort to cutting overtime work and even reduce salaries before laying off workers.
In December, Khalfan al-Kaabi, a member of the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce board of directors, said up to 45 percent of construction workers could be laid off this year if private sector projects in the UAE were delayed or cancelled.
Zaman said he could not provide a figure on Bangladeshi workers having lost their jobs in the UAE, because the process is not done "formally".
He also pointed out that he noticed, during inspection visits to labor camps that many workers stayed in the UAE even if they were not being paid, in hope of finding work.
But poor unemployed workers cannot linger for long if jobs remain rare.
"Maybe this month I have to decide to stay or go ... because I don't have any money. Now I'm borrowing from friends," said Arnold.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
RP workers in Dubai may face layoffs
By Edson C. Tandoc Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: October 15, 2008
MANILA, Philippines—The construction industry in Dubai is also in danger of being affected by the global financial slowdown, risking the jobs of Filipino construction workers there, an international labor union representative has warned.
Ambet Yuson, regional representative of the Malaysia-based Building and Wood Workers International Asia-Pacific said almost half of the investments poured into massive construction projects in Dubai came from investors borrowing from US banks, which have been badly hit by the financial crisis. Yuson said he based this on reports from their members.
“It will mean that many construction workers are going home,” Yuson said in a phone call to the Philippine Daily Inquirer from Hong Kong.
However, he said that nearby countries in the Middle East have been so far safe from the financial slump, like Kuwait, whose infrastructure projects were largely funded by the government.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: October 15, 2008
MANILA, Philippines—The construction industry in Dubai is also in danger of being affected by the global financial slowdown, risking the jobs of Filipino construction workers there, an international labor union representative has warned.
Ambet Yuson, regional representative of the Malaysia-based Building and Wood Workers International Asia-Pacific said almost half of the investments poured into massive construction projects in Dubai came from investors borrowing from US banks, which have been badly hit by the financial crisis. Yuson said he based this on reports from their members.
“It will mean that many construction workers are going home,” Yuson said in a phone call to the Philippine Daily Inquirer from Hong Kong.
However, he said that nearby countries in the Middle East have been so far safe from the financial slump, like Kuwait, whose infrastructure projects were largely funded by the government.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Arroyo in Dubai job hunt; OFWs warned
UAE also dropping foreign workers, says expert
By Jerome Aning, Christian V. Esguerra
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: April 13, 2009
MANILA, Philippines—President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is now in Dubai to shop for investments and jobs for Filipinos displaced by the global financial crisis, but a recruitment industry consultant warned that employment opportunities had all but dried up there.
According to Emmanuel Geslani, Dubai has lost its status as a corporate financial hub and many unemployed migrant workers are now finding out just how tough are the laws on debt, immigration and labor in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Geslani aired the warning Sunday, in the course of pointing out that Ms Arroyo’s trip to Dubai to meet with prospective employers of Filipinos did not mean that thousands of jobs were still available there.
“My advice to [Filipinos] is: Don’t go there for nothing so you will not suffer,” Geslani told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the phone.
He said Filipinos applying for jobs in Dubai and other parts of the UAE should verify from their would-be employers if a working visa or permit would be eventually issued to them when they get there.
Geslani, a 30-year veteran of the recruitment industry, is a former vice chair and three-term director of the Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. (PASEI).
His clients include Manila-based recruitment agencies belonging to PASEI, the Federation of Manpower Exporters and the Overseas Performers Association of the Philippines.
Middle East Forum
Ms Arroyo arrived in the UAE from Thailand at 2:20 a.m. Saturday (Manila time). She was ahead of schedule in her four-day, two-nation swing because of the political turmoil in Pattaya, Thailand, that aborted the April 10-12 summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) there.
In its official website, Malacañang said the President was to attend the “Middle East Forum,” an employment and business opportunities summit, in Dubai.
It said the event would gather some “250 private service providers involved in the recruitment and hiring of skilled workers and professionals, plus concerned officials from both sending and receiving countries.”
“The Middle East Forum aims to bring together key players—employers, manpower providers, officials of the Philippines and Gulf Cooperating Countries—to discuss how the Philippines can fill up large-scale job orders in the region within the year,” it said.
Malacañang described the UAE as the workplace of choice of Filipino workers in the Middle East, next only to Saudi Arabia.
It is home to 304,241 documented and 35,040 undocumented Filipino workers, it said.
Of the number, 19.47 percent are considered professionals, 38.25 percent skilled, 27.97 percent semi-skilled, and 14.31 percent unskilled.
Empty malls, lost jobs
But Geslani said: “Ms Arroyo may just be wasting taxpayer money by flying all the way to Dubai as she may find countless half-built buildings with their cranes motionless, empty malls and starving Filipinos who have lost their jobs.”
He cited the case of 120 Filipinos who were initially deployed to the UAE with only visitor visas and who were later terminated before they could get work visas.
Under UAE immigration laws, the Filipinos should have secured work visas or they must leave in order to renew their visitor visas.
Penniless and unable to cope with the high cost of living, the Filipinos were forced to seek shelter at the Philippine Embassy.
Geslani also cited a “horror story” reported by a British daily about a Canadian woman forced to live in a Range Rover for months in the underground garage of one of Dubai’s international hotels. Her husband was reportedly imprisoned for six months for nonpayment of debts.
As a consultant, Geslani advises his clients on the viability of their hiring projects and makes representations with government agencies concerning policies affecting recruiters.
He has contacts with placement firms abroad.
Canceled work visas
Quoting from regional recruitment industry data, Geslani said from 1,500 to 2,000 visas were being canceled in the UAE’s white-collar sector every day.
He said many construction companies in Dubai had temporarily stopped over $500 billion worth of new projects and sent home over 40,000 workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The number is expected to rise in the coming months as thousands of foreign workers have begun filing complaints at the UAE labor ministry for unpaid salaries and termination without payment of salaries, according to Geslani.
Since the onset of the crisis, Geslani said about 30,000 white-collar jobs in international and local financial companies had been lost.
He said most of these jobs were held by nationals of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sri Lanka and Egypt.
Expatriates who lose their jobs in Dubai or other Gulf countries have to quickly pack up and leave as employers are supposed to notify the banks of terminations so the banks can demand repayment of loans owed by terminated employees, Geslani said.
Employees who have been told of their termination are given a grace period of two to three months to look for alternative work. However, most companies have stopped recruitment.
Geslani recalled that until October 2008, companies in Dubai and the rest of the UAE were on a hiring spree, with around 650,000 work permits issued to foreigners in 2008. Of that number, 360,000 were issued in Dubai alone.
The population of the UAE in 2008 was 6.4 million, of which 5.5 million were foreigners.
Meetings
Before returning to Manila on Tuesday, Ms Arroyo will meet with the UAE president, Sheik Khalifa Bid Zayed Al Nayan, at the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi and later with members of the Filipino community.
Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the meeting with the UAE president would seek to “strengthen the diplomatic, economic, and trade relations between the two countries and to secure a better deal for Filipino workers.”
In wrapping up her brief regional trip, Ms Arroyo will bring home memories of her unnerving experience in Thailand, where some 1,000 protesters seeking the ouster of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva stormed the convention center in Pattaya.
Ms Arroyo had to be airlifted from the roof of the Royal Cliff Grand Hotel to escape the protesters.
Remonde, who was part of the official delegation, said Ms Arroyo remained “calm and collected” throughout the experience.
But members of the Philippine delegation had to rush to where Ms Arroyo was, preventing them from getting their luggage from their respective hotel rooms, Remonde said.
He said Ms Arroyo had to designate Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, a former defense secretary and military chief of staff, as “ground commander” to coordinate the movements of the Philippine delegation.
By Jerome Aning, Christian V. Esguerra
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: April 13, 2009
MANILA, Philippines—President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is now in Dubai to shop for investments and jobs for Filipinos displaced by the global financial crisis, but a recruitment industry consultant warned that employment opportunities had all but dried up there.
According to Emmanuel Geslani, Dubai has lost its status as a corporate financial hub and many unemployed migrant workers are now finding out just how tough are the laws on debt, immigration and labor in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Geslani aired the warning Sunday, in the course of pointing out that Ms Arroyo’s trip to Dubai to meet with prospective employers of Filipinos did not mean that thousands of jobs were still available there.
“My advice to [Filipinos] is: Don’t go there for nothing so you will not suffer,” Geslani told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the phone.
He said Filipinos applying for jobs in Dubai and other parts of the UAE should verify from their would-be employers if a working visa or permit would be eventually issued to them when they get there.
Geslani, a 30-year veteran of the recruitment industry, is a former vice chair and three-term director of the Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. (PASEI).
His clients include Manila-based recruitment agencies belonging to PASEI, the Federation of Manpower Exporters and the Overseas Performers Association of the Philippines.
Middle East Forum
Ms Arroyo arrived in the UAE from Thailand at 2:20 a.m. Saturday (Manila time). She was ahead of schedule in her four-day, two-nation swing because of the political turmoil in Pattaya, Thailand, that aborted the April 10-12 summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) there.
In its official website, Malacañang said the President was to attend the “Middle East Forum,” an employment and business opportunities summit, in Dubai.
It said the event would gather some “250 private service providers involved in the recruitment and hiring of skilled workers and professionals, plus concerned officials from both sending and receiving countries.”
“The Middle East Forum aims to bring together key players—employers, manpower providers, officials of the Philippines and Gulf Cooperating Countries—to discuss how the Philippines can fill up large-scale job orders in the region within the year,” it said.
Malacañang described the UAE as the workplace of choice of Filipino workers in the Middle East, next only to Saudi Arabia.
It is home to 304,241 documented and 35,040 undocumented Filipino workers, it said.
Of the number, 19.47 percent are considered professionals, 38.25 percent skilled, 27.97 percent semi-skilled, and 14.31 percent unskilled.
Empty malls, lost jobs
But Geslani said: “Ms Arroyo may just be wasting taxpayer money by flying all the way to Dubai as she may find countless half-built buildings with their cranes motionless, empty malls and starving Filipinos who have lost their jobs.”
He cited the case of 120 Filipinos who were initially deployed to the UAE with only visitor visas and who were later terminated before they could get work visas.
Under UAE immigration laws, the Filipinos should have secured work visas or they must leave in order to renew their visitor visas.
Penniless and unable to cope with the high cost of living, the Filipinos were forced to seek shelter at the Philippine Embassy.
Geslani also cited a “horror story” reported by a British daily about a Canadian woman forced to live in a Range Rover for months in the underground garage of one of Dubai’s international hotels. Her husband was reportedly imprisoned for six months for nonpayment of debts.
As a consultant, Geslani advises his clients on the viability of their hiring projects and makes representations with government agencies concerning policies affecting recruiters.
He has contacts with placement firms abroad.
Canceled work visas
Quoting from regional recruitment industry data, Geslani said from 1,500 to 2,000 visas were being canceled in the UAE’s white-collar sector every day.
He said many construction companies in Dubai had temporarily stopped over $500 billion worth of new projects and sent home over 40,000 workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The number is expected to rise in the coming months as thousands of foreign workers have begun filing complaints at the UAE labor ministry for unpaid salaries and termination without payment of salaries, according to Geslani.
Since the onset of the crisis, Geslani said about 30,000 white-collar jobs in international and local financial companies had been lost.
He said most of these jobs were held by nationals of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sri Lanka and Egypt.
Expatriates who lose their jobs in Dubai or other Gulf countries have to quickly pack up and leave as employers are supposed to notify the banks of terminations so the banks can demand repayment of loans owed by terminated employees, Geslani said.
Employees who have been told of their termination are given a grace period of two to three months to look for alternative work. However, most companies have stopped recruitment.
Geslani recalled that until October 2008, companies in Dubai and the rest of the UAE were on a hiring spree, with around 650,000 work permits issued to foreigners in 2008. Of that number, 360,000 were issued in Dubai alone.
The population of the UAE in 2008 was 6.4 million, of which 5.5 million were foreigners.
Meetings
Before returning to Manila on Tuesday, Ms Arroyo will meet with the UAE president, Sheik Khalifa Bid Zayed Al Nayan, at the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi and later with members of the Filipino community.
Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the meeting with the UAE president would seek to “strengthen the diplomatic, economic, and trade relations between the two countries and to secure a better deal for Filipino workers.”
In wrapping up her brief regional trip, Ms Arroyo will bring home memories of her unnerving experience in Thailand, where some 1,000 protesters seeking the ouster of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva stormed the convention center in Pattaya.
Ms Arroyo had to be airlifted from the roof of the Royal Cliff Grand Hotel to escape the protesters.
Remonde, who was part of the official delegation, said Ms Arroyo remained “calm and collected” throughout the experience.
But members of the Philippine delegation had to rush to where Ms Arroyo was, preventing them from getting their luggage from their respective hotel rooms, Remonde said.
He said Ms Arroyo had to designate Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, a former defense secretary and military chief of staff, as “ground commander” to coordinate the movements of the Philippine delegation.
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