Coronavirus forces Philippine workers to return home, depriving families of income
The worldwide surge in job losses has upended the US$690 billion global remittance industry, an essential support for many developing economies
Remittances to the Philippines reached US$30 billion last year, making it one of the biggest foreign-exchange earners after exports
For millions of Filipinos, money sent home by a relative working overseas can make the difference between hunger and survival. This year, those funds may not arrive.
With coronavirus bringing the global economy to a standstill, planes carrying workers from abroad back to the Philippines
have become a common sight at Manila’s airport. The government has repatriated more than 17,000 Filipinos who lost their jobs because of lockdowns abroad. Thousands more are believed to have returned on their own, while others who’ve lost jobs choose to wait it out overseas.
Beverly Pacultad, 40, returned March 23 from Hong Kong, where she’d been employed as a domestic helper.
The mother of three had arrived in Hong Kong in November, hoping to save enough to send her oldest daughter to college. She earned twice as much looking after a toddler there as she did as a teacher in Manila, and was able to remit about 40,000 pesos (US$788) to her family. When the pandemic struck
and Hong Kong shut schools and businesses, her employer – a Chinese family – decided to return to the mainland, no longer needing her services.
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▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3080834/coronavirus-forces-philippine-workers-return-home