400,000 Filipino Seafarer Deployed Overseas while demands continue to Grow

Manila, Philippines - Around 400,000 Filipino seafarers will be deployed aboard international vessels overseas by the end of the year as demands to hire Filipino crewmembers and officers continue to grow.

The said statistics came from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). The government agency is responsible for processing the files of Filipino workers working abroad. The POEA based the impressive mark from the number of approved and processed documents of Filipino seafarers who are now working on various vessels around the world.

"In 2010, our deployment data for sea-based sector was 347,000 which was a 5.06 percent growth over the 2009 data, with an increase for land-based of 3.2 percent, showing a combined total of 1,470,826 deployment for that same year (2010), as compared to 1,422,586 in 2009, and 1,236,013 in 2008," POEA Administrator Carlos H. Cao, Jr.

This year’s numbers continue to grow and look very promising according to Cao. Currently, there us a 14.1 % increase for the seafarers and another 4.3 percent for land based workers in the international maritime industry.

The labour official further said that the total POEA processing for the first semester of 2011 has already posted a 19.5 percent increase on the number of Filipino seafarers deployed abroad. The growth in deployment of Filipino seafarers is very impressive considering that there are crises in most parts of the world.

“The number of deployment for seafarers is very encouraging and indications have surfaced that we may even surpass the 4000,000 mark,” relayed the POEA secretary.