7k nurses allowed for overseas employment this year- POEA
By J.Lo
“Actually, from a low of 3,500 cap last year, this year we are already allowing 7,000 nurses for deployment…basically, it increased to almost 100%,” Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) deputy administrator Bong Plan said in an interview ,at least 7,000 nurses are allowed for overseas employment this year amid COVID-19 pandemic.
Plan said this is 100% increase from 3,500 deployment cap last year.
Plan said one of the reasons for increasing deployment cap is due to decreasing number of COVID-19 infections in the country resulting in low demand for nurses.
“The demand of our nurses here slightly dropped because of the decreasing COVID-19 infections,” he said.
“Second, we already have licensure exams for our nurses so we can add our licensed nurses and other healthcare workers…so these are the facts that we consider whenever we decide on deployment cap,” Plan added.
The POEA deputy administrator said healthcare workers are in demand in countries including United Kingdom, Germany, United States, and Saudi Arabia.
Last year, Malacañang said the annual cap for deployment of newly hired health workers abroad has been increased to 7,000 from 6,000 amid COVID-19 pandemic.
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