The Dubai debt crisis is not expected to seriously affect the salaries of around 200,000 Filipino workers there and Manila stands ready to help if job loss spreads to the Filipino community, top Philippine labor official said Wednesday.
Labor Secretary Marianito Roque told a press briefing that the government is prepared to implement a "remedial action" once it receives
reports of contract termination among Filipino workers in Dubai.
"My expectation is that it would not reduce our numbers in deployment or employment rate and it will not have a serious effect on our remittances," Roque said.
The Philippine economy heavily depends on remittance sent home by around 8 million overseas workers. The remittance accounts for around 10
percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and is critical to sustain household consumption.
Roque said that in case Filipino workers are hit by the Dubai crisis, the government's "plan of action" is to find new employment opportunities for them in the other six emirates in the United Arab Emirates that are not as badly hit as Dubai, and also in other Gulf countries.
On Nov. 25, Dubai World and its main property subsidiary Nakheel asked for a six-month standstill on 59 billion dollars in debts, which caused wide-spread panic and worries in the financial sector across the world.
In response, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)'s central bank on Sunday established an emergency facility to aid bank liquidity, but development of the crisis was being closely watched as fears of another wave of financial
crisis accumulated.
Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE and boasts mushrooming skyscrapers and fast growing financial muscles in recent years.