The pursuit of employment opportunities abroad remained a prevalent choice among Filipinos, especially females, as the upward trend continued to gain momentum.

The population of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) or workers who worked abroad increased to 1.96 million in 2022, the Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA) reported on Wednesday, Oct. 11.

Based on the PSA survey, the number of OFWs from April to September a year earlier saw an increase of 7.6 percent from 1.83 million OFWs in the same period of 2021.

A total of P197.47 billion remittances were generated during the same period in 2022, this included cash sent at P145.40 billion, cash brought home P43.90 billion, and in-kind P8.17 billion.

The PSA also noted that of the 1.96 million OFWs, 41.7 percent sent remittances between P40,000 to less than P100,000, while 20.7 percent remitted at least P100,000 from April to September a year ago.

Of the P145.50 billion cash remittances sent to the country, P103.45 billion came from Asian countries.

The average remittance sent by every OFW during the period last year was placed at P111,000, higher than the P91,000 average remittance in the same period of 2021, the PSA said.

Of the total OFWs, the number of Overseas Contract Workers (OCWs) or those with existing work contracts shared the largest contribution of 98.7 percent with 1.94 million individuals.

While other OFWs who worked abroad without working visas or work permits such as tourist, visitor, student, medical, and other types of non-immigrant visas but were employed and working full time in other countries were estimated at 26,000.

Most of these OFWs were employed in elementary occupations, contributing a share of 44.4 percent to the total OFWs in 2022. This was followed by service and sales workers contributing a share of 15.5 percent, and plant machine operators and assemblers with 12.4 percent.

There were also more female OFWs in 2022 with a population of 1.13 million or 57.8 percent, while male OFWs were over 828,000 or 42.2 percent. This was also the same case a year before where 1.10 million were female OFWs, while 726,000 were male OFWs.

Older millennials, aged 30 to 34 years old, comprised the largest share of OFWs at 24.4 percent, followed by Filipinos aged 45 years old and above at 22.7 percent, while the 35 to 39 years old age group contributed 18 percent.

The majority of the Filipinos abroad a year ago worked in Asia at 80.8 percent. In the continent, most of them worked in Saudi Arabia with 23 percent of OFWs, followed by United Arab Emirates at 13.7 percent.

Capping off the top six countries where most OFWs worked were Kuwait at 7.7 percent, Hong Kong at 6.1 percent, Qatar at 5.8 percent, and Singapore at 5 percent.