Close to 450,000 displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been sent home to their provinces since May 2020, information coming from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) bared Sunday, Feb. 21.
Based on figures supplied by DOLE Information and Publication Service (IPS) Director Rolly Francia to reporters, 447,076 repatriated OFWs have returned to their home regions as of Sunday.
The Philippine government has repatriated thousands of Filipino migrants who lost their jobs ever since the World Health Organization (WHO) announced in March 2020 that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has reached the level of a pandemic.
Out of the 447,076 OFWs who have been sent home, 19,581 of them were accounted for this month alone.
A breakdown of figures showed that the number of returnees have actually been waning since the second week of December (7 to 13), when 16,149 were sent home.
The bulk of the returnees came a few weeks after the health crisis, as 108,351 OFW were able to return home between May 15 and July 26, 2020.
DOLE told a Congress inquiry last year that actual OFW displacement back in May 2020 was 323,537, with 238,362 of the Filipinos coming from the Middle East alone.