RGE on Philippine Remittances

RGE Monitor Asia shows of some statistical charts of Philippine Remittances

Major Sources of OFW Remittances in 2008 breakdown by country

Number of OFWs in 2007 Breakdown by Region

Remittance Growth Trends

RGE Monitor's growth estimates:
Base Case -6.17%
Best Case 0%
Worst Case -11%

From RGE's Mikka Pineda (bold highlight mine), ``The Filipino diaspora spans almost 170 countries, but is concentrated in the US, Saudi Arabia, Canada, UK, Italy, UAE, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. Except for Australia, these are also among the top ten remitters, with the addition of Germany, accounting for 88% of all remittances (see Chart 1 titled, “Major Sources of 2008 OFW Remittances”). Most OFWs in the US, Canada, Japan, Germany and Australia are permanent residents. Permanent residents often bring their families over to join them, hence they eventually have less need to send remittances back to the Philippines. Most of the stock of permanent land-based OFWs is nurses hired during the 1970s and 1980s to relieve nursing shortages in developed countries, especially the US.

``Nowadays, most deployment growth is driven by the Middle East, despite overtures to workforce nationalization in the Persian Gulf. Most workers in the Middle East and in general are temporary. As of 2007, 42.3% of the stock of OFWs were permanent, 47.4% were temporary, and 10.3% were irregular (illegals or undocumented workers). Temporary workers tend to remit most of their income as they expect to return and reside permanently in the Philippines. Domestic helpers are able to remit half of their income as many are provided with food and shelter if they are live-in housekeepers or nannies. Other temporary workers tend to be employed in other low-wage occupations, such as factory production or restaurant service."

Read the rest here

Our observation: We have long expected a downturn in remittance trends especially focusing on the plight of low skilled workers. But apparently this haven't been happening yet. A slowdown yes, but not yet negative growth.

Nonetheless, it doesn't mean that just because it hasn't happened, that it won't.

Maybe the collapse in last quarter's global trade would account for a belated or lagged impact.

And maybe too growth trend could be fall in between -11% (worst case) to 0% (best case) as suggested by Mikka Pineda (perhaps a Filipina?) of RGE.