MANILA, Philippines -- At least 781 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been laid off in Taiwan and returned to the country since September after their employers started declaring bankruptcy or retrenching workers as the global financial crisis hit the island-nation, a non-government organization (NGO) said.
Eden See, who assists OFWs in Taiwan’s multinational work force for the NGO Hope Workers' Center, said as of last Sunday, her organization had helped 581 Filipinos get their employers to shoulder the air fare for their return to the Philippines.
She said another NGO has monitored 200 OFWs who have returned home.
See said this number only represents the migrant workers in the Chung Li and Tao Yuan districts in Taiwan.
"This only represents the migrants who have come to us for assistance. There could be more who went home on their own or approached other Church-based groups for help," she said.
Some, she said, have also opted to just ride out the crisis there in Taiwan.
She said that while the work contracts for Taiwan specify that employers do not need to shoulder air fare in case of bankruptcy, they were able to negotiate for free transport home for many of repatriated OFWs.
See, who is in Manila, met with officials of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Wednesday.
She asked POEA officials to ensure that Taiwan employers who have retrenched OFWs be disallowed from "recycling" and "selling" the unused portion of the three-year contracts.
She explained that some employers and "manpower brokers" (recruiters) are able to make money from this scheme because the law allows them to charge placement fees worth around P85,000 to P100,000 for the unused potion of the contracts, or P65,000 if the unused portion is less than one year.
"Some OFWs are lured into paying these placement fees because they are shown these existing job contracts," she said.
See said they have assisted OFWs who have been in Taiwan for only two months after paying P120,000 in placement fees.
"They raised that amount by going into debt and now that they've been retrenched, they cannot pay their debt back," she said. "It's sad and unfortunate that for ones so young, they are already burdened by debt."
According to Jackson Gan of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters, many Taiwan companies have resorted to cost-cutting measures like shifting and doing away with overtime.
He admitted that job contracts for new hires are not being filled because of the global financial crisis, which is hitting export-dependent Taiwan very hard.
Gan said there are currently about 90,000 OFWs in Taiwan.(inquirer.net)
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Topic: 781 OFWs lose jobs in Taiwan (Read 868 times)