Bello orders POEA to process deployment of workers to South Korea

MANILA, Philippines — Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III has ordered the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to begin processing the deployment of workers to South Korea as the foreign nation is set to lift its restrictions.

Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) on Friday announced that it will permit the entry of workers under its entry permit system (EPS) before the end of November.

According to the Department of Labor and Employment, 2,000 returning EPS workers and 2,000 new hires are awaiting deployment to South Korea.

“This is a very good news not only to our EPS workers and their families, but also to the Korean employers who have been waiting for our workers to return,” Bello said in a statement on Sunday.

The move is a “much-awaited development” for thousands of EPS workers who have been waiting for their deployment since 2020, Bello added.

Korea’s MOEL stressed that pre-entry measures include full COVID-19 vaccination and a negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test result.

After entering the country, EPS workers are subject to measures such as mandatory quarantine and RT-PCR testing.

Meanwhile, the Korean Embassy in the Philippines is still waiting for guidelines from the foreign government on the issuance of E9 visas to EPS workers.

The deployment of Filipino workers to South Korea under government-to-government cooperation was suspended due to the foreign nation’s restrictions in June 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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