POEA Administrator Hans Leo J. Cacdac warned recruitment agencies
against charging placement fees from job applicants for New Zealand.
Cacdac said licensed recruitment agencies are not allowed to charge
recruitment or placement fees from workers deployed to countries that prohibits
collection of such fees.
Cacdac said the New Zealand Embassy in the Philippines has validated the
existence of New Zealand’s Wages Protection Act of 1983 which disallows
employer to “seek or receive any premium in respect of the employment of any
person, whether the premium is sought or received from the person employed or
proposed to be employed or from any other person”.
Section 3, Rule V, Part II of the POEA Rules and Regulations Governing the
Recruitment and Employment of Land-based Overseas Workers provides that a
recruitment agency may charge and collect from its hired workers as placement
fee, an amount equivalent to one month salary, exclusive of documentation
costs, except where the prevailing system where the worker is to be deployed,
either by law or practice, does not allow charging or collection of placement and
recruitment fee.
Cacdac said the penalty of cancellation of license, even on the first offense,
awaits recruitment agencies found charging or collecting placement fee for
deployment of OFWs to “no placement fee” countries.
Other countries that have prohibition on collection of placement fees are United
States of America (H2B visa), Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, and the
Netherlands.
Cacdac advised job applicants to report to the POEA through its official
Facebook page agencies that collect placement fees for New Zealand jobs and
the other countries mentioned above. /END
via :www.poea.gov.ph
