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By William B. Depasupil, Reporter
FILIPINOS continue to be the most
preferred workers under the Employment Permit System (EPS) as the
Ministry of Labor of Korea increases to 12,000 the job roster quota
of the Philippines for 2007 from 10,000 in 2006.
In a report to Labor and
Employment Secretary Arturo Brion, the Philippine Overseas
Employment Administration (POEA) administrator, Rosalinda Dimapilis
Baldoz, attributed Korea’s growing confident on the Filipino
workers’ efficiency and reliability in the job site.
The EPS is a
government-to-government agreement and private recruitment agencies
are not authorized to participate in its implementation. There are
14 labor-sending countries under Korea’s EPS program.
The POEA is the only government
organization authorized to implement the EPS in the country.
Baldoz said that because of the
Filipino workers good performance in 2006, the Philippines got the
highest quota among 14 labor sending countries to Korea which
include Thailand with 11,000; Vietnam 11,000; Indonesia 9,000;
Mongolia 9,000; and Sri-Lanka with 8,000. Other countries have
quotas ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 workers.
Baldoz said the decision to
increase the quota for the Philippines underscores the confidence of
Korea in the soundness of our labor migration policies and the
competence of the government overseas employment agencies to deliver
the required services in accordance with the memorandum of
understanding between Korea and the Philippines.
It also effectively debunked
speculations that the quota will be reduced because of the alleged
increase in the number of overstaying Filipinos in Korea.
“The rate of increase of
illegal foreign nationals was one of the criteria used in the
country allocation so the insinuation was proved wrong with the
increase of quota,” Baldoz said.
The Korea Ministry of Labor
reported that from January to November 2006, a total of 2,053
foreign workers left their employers illegally. Mongolians topped
the list with 687; Thais, 612; Indonesians, 246; Filipinos, 231;
Vietnamese, 193; and Sri Lankans, 84.
The other criteria used were
employers’ preference, labor contract cancellation, speed of
deployment process, and number of industries looking for prospective
workers.
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