Nearly two dozen foreign recruitment agencies and employers, some of them in Kuwait, as well as 19 recruitment firms operating in the Philippines, were suspended or have had their licenses revoked, in an ongoing attempt by the Philippines government to cleanse the overseas recruitment industry.
In a report to Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Administrator Bernard Olalia of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said cleansing the industry is part of the intensified regulatory exercise to protect the Filipino workers and promote the welfare of those seeking overseas employment.
POEA also said those recruitment agencies that have been suspended, fined, or had their licenses revoked, were found to have violated recruitment rules from January to July of this year. Olalia said the POEA had to publish the names of blacklisted agencies and employers, so that potential workers seeking employment overseas, especially in the Gulf countries, could avoid falling into the clutches of these entities.
