DMW: Issued overseas employment certificates up 17% in 2023

The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said the number of overseas employment certificates (OECs) it issued in 2023 increased by 17% compared to the record in 2022.

“Parehong umakyat—608,000 sea-based this year, 554,000 last year; land-based this year, 491,000, last year 411,000,” DMW officer-in-charge Hans Leo Cacdac said in a press conference.

(Both increased—for sea-based, 608,000 OECs were issued this year compared to 554,000 last year; for land-based, 491,000 this year compared to 411,000 last year.)

“On both fronts tumaas pero mas notable iyong 608,000 because first time tayo nag-issue ng 608,000 for the sea-based sector,” Cacdac added.

(On both fronts, they increased but the number of OECs for the sea-based sector is more notable because it is the first time that we have issued 608,000 for the sea-based sector.)

Cacdac attributed the increase to the opening up of the economy in recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

With this development, the DMW said they anticipated that the number of OEC issuances in 2023 would breach the all-time high record.

Citing an estimate from the World Bank, the DMW said OFW remittances already reached around $40 billion in 2023, compared to the $32 billion record in 2022.

Meanwhile, the DMW reported that for this year it had assisted 382 victims of human trafficking in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, as well as 372 illegal recruitment victims in Italy.

Amid the Israel-Hamas war, a total of 555 OFWs were repatriated. In connection with the Sudan civil war, 700 OFWs were also sent back to the Philippines. — DVM, GMA Integrated News