A whole lot of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) will end up losing their jobs due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, says Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III.
“Ang worst case scenario natin ay mga 1 million OFWs ang mawawalan ng trabaho,” says Bello during an interview. Currently, there are 343,000 OFWs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic from different parts of the world.
Some 191,000 of these OFWs chose not to return home and instead, they looked for other jobs abroad. But then, Bello assured the OFWs that they will be given livelihood assistance in case they won’t get qualified with an alternative employment upon their return to the country.
“Sa kanila (OFWs), meron naman tayong nakahandang livelihood assistance para sa mga hindi pwede sa alternative employment. Magiging livelihood assistance nalang ang ipaparating natin sa kanila,” says Bello.
Millions of people from all over the world are already affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This number is expected to rise as there are no vaccines and medicines for COVID-19 patients available at the moment.
As of June 4, 2020, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines is 20,382 while 4,248 recoveries were listed. The number of fatality is already 984, with 10 new reported today.
Source: Inquirer
