Reverse migration alarms Philippines

The Philippines could experience large-scale reverse migration of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the coming months, according to a Filipino migrants rights group. The group is urging their government to prepare "for the worst" and mitigate the impact of nationalization in Saudi Arabia on OFWs and their dependents and to the country’s economy in general.
“What is happening in Saudi Arabia and other Mideast countries is actually the shrinking of labor market, of which the immediate impact is job displacement,” said Migrante Vice Chairperson John Leonard Monterona.
He said at least 120,000 Filipinos were directly affected by Saudization, including an estimated 28,000 undocumented OFWs.
Monterona, who is also the group’s coordinator in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), said: “The Philippines is already witnessing the early stage of reverse migration among OFWs. The dilemma is that OFWs are coming home not for good, but for worse.”
According to him, reverse migration has been noted and documented among OFWs in the Middle East, specifically in Saudi Arabia, due to the implementation of the Kingdom’s Nitaqat law, which strictly requires the hiring of their own nationals over expatriate workers.
Monterona said the displacement of thousands OFWs was not only happening in Saudi Arabia but also in Bahrain and Oman. Both countries have intensified the "localization" of its labor market by giving their citizens employment priority over migrant workers.
Meanwhile, OFWs in the Bahamas also face the threat of being displaced. Egypt, Libya and Syria are affected by political unrest, forcing thousands of OFWs to leave these countries.
Around 10,000 to 12,000 have sought the government’s assistance for repatriation with the embassy, consular and labor officials, while others are trying to legalize their status by transferring to another sponsor for employment, which the Saudi Labor Ministry has made possible by granting a 90-day grace period for legalization or repatriation by July 3.
More than 200 stranded OFWs were already repatriated from Saudi since April. While nearly 5,000 OFWs came home from Syria, while around 114 OFWs in Amman, Jordan are expected to be repatriated soon.
There are an estimated 2.3 million OFWs working in the Middle East, of which 1.5 million are in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom has been the No. 1 destination for OFWs since the 1990s, recently averaging 25,000 newcomers every month.
“Unfortunately, the OFW reverse migration phenomenon has been falsely interpreted by the current administration and its labor honchos to bolster their claim of economic growth,” he lamented, pointing out that it is hard to reconcile ‘reverse migration for good’ with the country’s high unemployment amid a 7.8-percent GDP growth rate during the first quarter of this year."
According to Monterona, the country’s unemployed stands at 7.5 percent of the labor force, or 3 million people, as of April 2013, compared to a 6.9 percent unemployment rate in the same month last year.
“Who doesn’t want reverse migration? Yes, we still hope for it. But this will never happen if the country has only a superficial GDP growth rate that only local big businessmen and multinational corporations reap benefit from,” Monterona said.