POEA warns recruiters vs illegal placement fees

MANILA, Philippines - With the opening of more markets for household service workers (HSWs), the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) warned recruitment agencies anew against the illegal collection of placement fees.

“Stop collecting placement fees from HSWs or lose your license,” POEA chief Hans Cacdac told recruitment agencies Saturday.

He said Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz has ordered the POEA to strictly enforce the reform package for HSWs, which prohibits the charging of placement fees.

“There is total prohibition on charging placement fees from Filipino HSWs whether done prior to their departure or on-site through salary deduction, as provided by POEA Governing Board Resolution 6,” Cacdac said.

Cacdac said recruiters should not try to circumvent the no-placement fee policy by collecting excessive fees supposedly for medical examination, training, video, bio-data, and pre-departure orientation seminar.

He said violating the prohibition on placement fee collection is considered a grave offense, the penalty for which is the cancellation of the agency’s license, regardless of the number of complainants.

Most countries hiring HSWs have regulations requiring employers to pay service fees to shoulder all the cost of hiring and deploying HSWs.

“Very clearly, licensed agencies can still collect placement fee or service fee, provided that it should not be shouldered by the worker but by the foreign principal,” Cacdac said.

He said recruiters should follow the lead of the 52-member Society of Hong Kong Accredited Recruiters of the Philippines, which decided to scrap the collection of placement fees.

The government earlier lifted the restriction on the deployment of HSWs to Saudi Arabia and is set to lift the ban on sending domestic helpers to Jordan within the month.

POEA data showed that greater bulk of the almost two million OFWs deployed overseas in 2012 are HSWs.