50 recruitment agencies shut down due to pandemic

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is looking for ways to help recruitment agencies that have temporary closed or shrunk operations due to the lockdowns and slowdown in deployment caused by the pandemic. Bernard Olalia, POEA administrator, said more than 50 recruitment agencies had given notices of temporary closure of their main offices. Some 70 agency branches will also shut down temporarily, he added. Olalia said one measure was the automatic extension of the licenses of recruitment agencies that suspended operations. “We will not only give direct aid to them but provide for automatic extension of their licenses … We will not impose some of our regulations so that we can help them,” Olalia said. The POEA website lists 1,234 recruitment agencies that are active or with valid licenses. —Jerome Aning