HUNDREDS of overseas recruitment agencies for land-based jobs have shut down amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, a recruitment consultant said.
In a statement, consultant Emmanuel Geslani said only 100 to 200 agencies have remained open out of around 800 agencies in the country.
"Even the household service sector, which provides 60 percent of yearly deployment, has been severely affected with their main market, the Middle East countries, closed for the meantime," said Geslani.
He said many agencies have terminated majority of their employees and closed several provincial branches.
Geslani said the remaining agencies are holding on to the reopening of the Middle East markets to Filipino workers.
He said, however, that he was not optimistic that the industry would recover in 2021.
He said the Middle East market is still expected to be largely closed, except for Qatar, Oman and United Arab Emirates. Job offers from these three countries are, however, limited.
Agencies focusing on sea-based deployment are also struggling as majority of the cruise lines have suspended operations.
"So far, only crew changes for merchant vessels have been holding up the deployment this year," Geslani said.
Only a limited number of cruise lines are also expected to sail by the first quarter of 2021.
"In the Philippines, where the Covid-19 vaccine may be available only by May or June, the deployment situation will still be low," Geslani said.
Industry estimates show that only 160,000 land-based overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were deployed and around sea-based workers were hired in 2020, just a fraction of the total number of OFWs deployed in 2019.
According to the 2019 Survey on Overseas Filipinos of the Philippine Statistics Authority, around 2.2 million OFWs worked at any time during the period April to September 2019.
Overseas contract workers, or those with existing work contracts, comprised 96.8 percent of the total OFWs during the said period. The rest who worked overseas without contract accounted for 3.2 percent. (HDT / SunStar Philippines)