Fast facts on Overseas Filipino Workers

    November 6, 2024

    Based on the 2023 Survey on Overseas Filipino Workers of the Philippine Statistics Office

    Based on the 2023 Survey on Overseas Filipinos of the Philippine Statistics Office, there are an estimated 2.16 million Filipinos working abroad. A majority of these “modern day heroes” are women who work as caregivers and domestic workers.

    Many of them are parents who left their children behind at the care of others in order to provide for the basic needs of their children.

    Distance Parenting: Bridging oceans between Filipino migrant workers and the children left behind seeks to provide holistic interventions tailored to the specific needs of children left behind by the migration of Filipino workers, their OFW parents, and the children’s caregivers.

    The project is being implemented in partnership with Migrante Philippines and the Mission for Migrant Workers through the support of Unifor Social Justice Fund.

    It is estimated that there are 2.16 million Filipinos working abroad from April to September 2023, an increase of 9.8 percent from the previous year’s estimated number of 1.96 million.
    1.20 million or 55.6% of OFWs are women. While male overseas workers who were 45 years old and over comprised the largest share of OFWs at 29.2 percent, a higher proportion of females were recorded for ages 25 to 44 compared to their male counterparts.
    64% of female OFWs were engaged in elementary occupations.
    Total remittances of OFWs amount to PhP 239 Billion
    Distribution of OFWs across continents: North and South America: 9.8%, Europe: 8.4%, Asia: 77.4%, Australia: 3%, Africa: 1.3%.