Review of the Overseas Employment Program: 
Implications for Future Directions

Three major strategies will direct the activities of the overseas employment program – employment facilitation, workers’ protection, and administrative systems and procedures improvement.

There is a need to improve the global reach and competitiveness of Filipino labor by finding new markets and carving a different market niche in so-called traditional markets for workers in the higher end of the market spectrum.

Facilities and services must be provided for the reintegration of returning Filipino overseas contract workers (OCWs) into the mainstream of the national economy as trained labor or entrepreneurs.

The foreign remittances of OCWs must be efficiently utilized, particularly in the promotion of higher savings rates, and the diversion of more investments into businesses.

Employment facilitation should be improved through appropriate marketing policies/ strategies, responsive recruitment regulations, and streamlined facilitation of services and procedures.

Social and welfare services for OCWs and their families must be strengthened.  They should also be educated specifically on their rights and responsibilities.

A national anti-illegal recruitment campaign should be sustained and a more realistic set of overseas employment standards must be implemented.

The functions and responsibilities of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) should be decentralized.  Presently, there are POEA regional extension units in Cebu, Iloilo, Davao, Baguio and La Union.