Overseas Filipino
Encyclopedia : O : OV : OVE : Overseas Filipino
An Overseas Filipino is a person of Philippine origin who lives and works outside the Philippines. The poor performance of the Philippine economy over recent decades, combined with a widespread knowledge of English, a legacy of the Philippines' position as a former United States colony, have made Filipinos one of the most internationally mobile nationalities. Often works overseas will support extended families back in the Philippines. As a result, many countries around the world have a substantial Filipino community
Population and Diaspora
There are more than 8.7 million overseas Filipinos worldwide, about 10% of the total population of the Philippines. However, the number may be higher due to a large rate of illegal Filipino migrants who overstayed or carry a lapsed visa. The population could be projected to be at 11 million.
Each year, the Philippines sends out more than a million of its nationals to work abroad. They are typically employed as doctors, accountants, housekeepers, nurses, engineers and domestic helpers.
The Filipino diaspora is the third largest in terms of population. The Chinese is the largest, with about 35 million followed by the Indian diaspora at 22 million.
Filipinos on Holiday
While many Filipinos prefer overseas employment, others also travel outside the Philippines for business and pleasure. These travellers are mostly business owners and entrepreneurs, famous actors, politicians, as well as people who are in the high and middle classes of society. Filipinos on holiday also go abroad for the intent of visiting their loved-ones who are engaged in overseas employment. Seafering on oceangoing vessels is popular as well.
Countries with Large Filipino Populations
- United States. Despite race relations problems of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the American Northwest, most Filipino-Americans today find it easy to integrate with American society. According to the American Community Survey, in 2004, about 2,959,541 Filipinos and Filipino-Americans live in the United States. However, this number is speculated to be at more than 5.5 million, according to many Filipino-American organizations, with 1 million that are undocumented. They are also the second largest Asian-American subgroup only after the Chinese
- Canada. Only a small population of Filipinos resided in Canada until the late 20th century. There are currently between 300,000 to 350,000 Filipino Canadians and immigrants in Canada.
- Spain. With around 55,000 citizens, the Filipinos are now the 2nd largest Asian community in Spain behind the Chinese. Although many Filipinos did emmigrate or ran away to Spain after the US took over the islands in 1898, most of the Filipinos moved to the old metropoli during the 60s and 70s seeking jobs, which in many cases were related to house keeping or industrial activities. There's also a significant group of Spaniards of Filipino origins (some of whom are from 3rd and 4th generations) including some famous people like Isabel Preysler.
- Italy. There are more than 500,000 "listed" Filipinos in Italy. Ironically, Italy gained more momentum in regard to receiving Filipino immigrants than Canada despite the longer and more historical migration of Filipinos to the North American nation.
- Hong Kong. There are 140,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong, of whom most are domestic helpers (30,000 of them being members of the Filipino Migrant Workers Union). Filipino maids are known by the locals as amahs, or more often feiyungs (less politely bun mui or bun bun). A Hong Kong work visa requires some amount of higher education; and in some cases Filipino women with college degrees and perfect command of English are willing to work as maids and nannies for a salary higher than they could make at home.
- Taiwan. According to 2006 data of Taiwanese government, there are 96,000 of "alien workers" from Philippine. Out of these, 58,704 are in manufacture industries, and 34,602 are in social or persaonal services (eg. housekeeper)[#endnote_taiwan]. According to 2004 data of Filipino government, there are 2,037 stay permanently, 154,135 stay for work contracts, and 4,500 stay irregularly, which make a sum of 160,672.
- Middle Eastern Countries. Many Filipinos work in as domestic and construction workers in the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council. More than 1.5 million Filipinos are predicted to have made the Middle East their home.
- Japan. Some 500,000 Filipinos and Filipino-Japanese are listed to be living within Japan's geographic confines. However, this number is speculated to be larger, surpassing the one million mark, in relation to many unlisted and illegal Filipino nationals in the Land of the Rising Sun.
- South Korea. In South Korea some 70,000 Filipinos work in various types of employment.
- Australia. In 2000 Australia recorded about 127,000 Filipinos and/or Filipino-Australians. Filipinos In Australia all have permanent residency or Australian citizenships, due to the fact that Australian government does not issue working visas to Filipinos. Despite this fact, there is still a very small number of Filipinos who live in Australia illegally with most of them having overstayed their visitor visas. The main criteria to enable a Filipino to migrate to Australia are skills and education, thus most of the Filipino migrants in Australia are professionals and skilled people. Most Filipino-Australians hold very good positions as health professionals, educators, engineers, computer programmers, trades people and even as public servants. There are a small number of Filipino migrants who are employed in the blue collar industries, such as factory workers, hospitality workers and construction labourers.
- United Kingdom. Nurses and caregivers have begun flocking into the United Kingdom these past years. The island-nation has welcomed about 20,000 nurses and other Filipinos of various employment and lifestyle during the past 5 years. The United Kingdom may be home to some 100,000 Filipino nationals.
- Malaysia. As North Borneo is very close to the Philippines, there are a lot of Filipino illegal immigrants there. Estimates range from 20-30 percent of the entire population of Sabah, Malaysia. (600 to 900 thousand). Native Sabahans themselves are closely related to southern Filipinos. Many of the Filipinos are poor, and work in construction industries, fisheries, and other labor intensive sectors. Most live in stilt slums scattered behind cities or on offshore islands. Linguistically, they are often much closer to Bahasa Melayu than Tagalog.
Issues
Many overseas Filipinos face many obstacles when they arrive in their country of destination. Usually, they are deprived of a wide range of employment rights since domestic work does not fall within the scope of protection laws.
Some of them are withheld their pay, while others have their documents confiscated or hidden by their employers. Furthermore, many of these domestic workers are abused, assaulted, or sexually harassed by their employers.
However, low-skilled workers are not deprived by their government. Philippine embassies and consulates have established a strong and stern connection with its nationals in their respective host countries. Many OFW's are urged to report any misconduct or abuse by employers to the said Philippine agencies rather than the local authorities. This is a much better and preferred way by many since the contengencies offered through this are more promising and protective. It is also to avoid any types of prejudice and racial discrimination.
Ironically, some Filipinos of professional work and/or field are also facing this type of issue.
Overseas Filipino Workers
An Overseas Filipino Worker (often abbreviated OFW) is a term for a Filipino who is employed in work outside the Philippines. Some eight million Filipinos, out of a population of 80 million, have left the country to seek work abroad, attracted by jobs with salaries that far exceed those of jobs available in the Philippines. These jobs often include nursing, technology, fishing and teaching. Money sent by OFWs back to the Philippines is a major factor in the country's economy, amounting to more than US$10 billion in 2005. [link] This makes the country the fifth largest recipient behind India, China, Mexico, and France. The amount represents 13.5% of the country's GDP, the largest in proportion to the domestic economy among the five countries. [link]However, the exodus of workers from the country includes an increasing number of skilled workers taking on unskilled work overseas, resulting in serious brain drain, particularly in the health and education sectors. Also, the exodus can result in underemployment, especially in cases where doctors undergo retraining to become nurses.
According to the World Bank, the Philippines received an amount of $12 billion worth of remittances, ranking fourth globally. tied with France. Remittances to the Philippines by overseas Filipinos are pivotal, especially in helping the local economy and currency, as well sustaining the lives of their loved-ones back home.
Reference
General statistics from Philippine government
[STOCK ESTIMATE OF OVERSEAS FILIPINOS] (MS Excel format), Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), 2004, on overseas Filipinos (work and/or live overseas):- 3,187,586 stay permanently, 3,599,257 stay for work contracts, and 1,296,972 stay irregularly (without proper document), which make a sum of 8,083,815.
- 1.06 million Overseas Filipinos Workers
- 33.4% are unskilled workers, 15.4% are Trades and related workers, 15.1% are plant and machine operators and assemblers.
- 49.3% are males, 50.7% are females.
- Remittances are 64.7 billion Philippine pesos (equals 1.2 billion USD then)
- 733,970 are landbased, 247,707 are seabased, which make a sum of 981,677. There is a 5.15% growth since 2004's 933,588.
- Remittances are 9,727,138,000 USD. There is a 26.6% growth since 2004.
From other governments
- ↑ [Alien Workers in Taiwan-Fukien Area by Industry and Nationality] (JPG and PDF format), 2006 February, CLA, Taiwan.
See also
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.