THE Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) is looking at four European nations as potential markets for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) for 2024, citing prevailing demands for workers there.
In a press briefing on Friday, December 29, 2023, DMW Undersecretary Patricia Caunan said that they are looking at Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and Czech Republic as having the potential to be big OFW markets.
"Not the entire job vacancies are allocated for OFWs... But these are markets in Europe that are looking at hiring workers from the Philippines," said Caunan.
"These are the emerging or new markets," she added.
In Austria, Caunan noted that it is looking at hiring as many as 200,000 foreign workers.
She said there is also a demand for 10,000 to 20,000 workers in Hungary for next year.
Caunan said Croatia and the Czech Republic are also looking at hiring between 5,000 to 10,000 workers from the Philippines.
But aside from emerging markets, the DMW official said they will also continue sending OFWs to the "traditional" destination countries.
This includes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
"We look forward to the deployment of more workers in countries in the Middle East, which are our traditional markets," said Cacdac. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)