REMITTANCES ARE EXPECTED to have grown by at least 6 percent in January from a year ago, with the global economic recovery allowing companies offshore to rehire workers laid off earlier, if not employ new ones.
This was the forecast of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, which said that remittance growth in January likely exceeded the full-year target of 6 percent.
“Demand for Filipino labor continues to be strong,” BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said at the sidelines of the annual convention of the Chamber of Thrift Banks yesterday at Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City.
In January 2009, remittances amounted to $1.3 billion.
For the entire 2009, money sent by Filipinos overseas reached $17.3 billion, growing 5.6 percent from $16.4 billion in the previous year. The increase exceeded most expectations, some of which pointed to a drastic 30-percent reduction given the recession suffered by countries that served as markets for Filipino labor.
Labor officials said the increase in remittances in 2009 that came despite the global economic turmoil was partly attributed to the government’s move to enter into agreements with countries that were not as badly affected by the crisis.
Monetary officials said the BSP has been getting reports that job orders being received by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration continued to rise, especially at the start of 2010 as investor sentiment started to shift from gloomy to optimistic.
There were 532,214 job orders received by POEA last year and only 42 percent of these have been processed as of end-2009. This means more job orders were likely processed in January and would still be processed in the coming months, thus fueling the amount of remittances to the Philippines in 2010.
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