NEWS RELEASE

27 August 2015

POEA warns OFWs on "third-country recruitment"

Administrator Hans Leo J. Cacdac yesterday advised Filipino workers who are presently employed overseas to be more careful about accepting offers of employment in another country.

Cacdac said his office has received a report from the Philippine Embassy in Turkey on the case of a household worker who is now jobless in Ankara, after leaving her previous employer in Hong Kong.

In her written statement, the household worker said she was recruited by a recruitment agency in Hong Kong, whose owner promised her a better job in Turkey. She was charged HK$19,000 for the supposed new job.

She arrived in Turkey on May 2015 and was employed for a while but was terminated after 45 days. She is currently looking for a new employer who will be able to give her work permit.

According to the household worker, the recruitment agency has an office in Ankara and started sending Filipino workers from Hong Kong to Turkey in November 2014. Applicants are made to pay US$3,000 each as placement fee.

Cacdac said third-country recruitment is illegal because the recruiter and the employer have no license or authority from the POEA. "And most probably, the conditions of employment are not what one had in mind; worse, the offered job is non-existent," Cacdac said.