An OFW exodus to the new Promised Land
The most critical development that is expected to emerge starting Day One of 2015, in the advent of the ASEAN Economic Community, is a new EXODUS of Filipino migrant workers to the other ASEAN countries, which may thus be called the New Promised Land. Whilst today, a large number of OFWs are leaving the country daily, the pace, the rate and the volume of outward migration will double the current average, reaching as high as twelve thousand Filipinos leaving the country every single day. Half of such number will go to ASEAN nine, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos PDR, and Brunei Darussalam.
The Philippines will most probably lose a good number of human capital, and talents will go out into the ASEAN with less or no barriers at all. Immigration and employment restrictions will be abrogated and there indeed shall be a free flow of services and goods. Theoretically, many semi-skilled and unskilled workers from Cambodia, Laos PDR, and Myanmar shall in turn be marching into our local labor markets, and undercutting our own workers but their willingness to accept lower wages and lesser labor standards and safety nets. But our employers will most probably reject many of them due to language barriers and cultural baggage.
But the most compelling phenomenon will not be inward migration but outward movement of Filipino talents in numbers and frequencies never been reached before. For instance, Singapore will continue to attract most of ASEAN-bound OFWs. We shall be losing the best among our engineers, IT and electronics professionals, accountants, nurses and other highly technical and administrative talents, and also casino and resort personnel, entertainers and shop, restaurant and hotel staff. Singapore pays four times higher than what employers here can afford to offer.
Malaysia will hire more oil and gas engineers and technical experts, educators and academic administrators from the Philippines, and also health and medical professionals. HR professionals are in demand in Malaysia's oil industry, banking, hotel and restaurant and tourism-oriented establishments. Indonesia needs manufacturing and sales personnel, especially in the booming mining and wood-based industries, as well as in its burgeoning oil industry. Tourism is in boom in Indonesia and they need the competencies of Pinoys. In education too as well as in health care and in entertainment.
Thailand has been offering very attractive packages of salaries and benefits to lure our teachers to abandon their classes here and embark on labor migration with above the market rates of compensation. it will continue to do so. The Philippines will be losing a lot of teachers and school administrators commencing January 2015. Brunei will continue to attract Filipino engineers to work in their oil rigs and in oil refinery. Myanmar and Laos. along with Cambodia will need thousands of teachers. As these three countries continue to struggle to build their nations. And so, they will need a lot of line managers, HR and finance experts.
Our local employers should brace themselves in the coming AEC. They will be losing a lot of the experts whom they trained and developed over these years. Attrition will hit unparalleled levels and we may end up losing our best talents. Do we still have time to improve our systems in order to enhance our plans to ARM (Attract, Retain and Motivate) people and teams? You should know the answer.
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