Up to 60 Filipino workers in Qatar will lose their jobs later this month as their employer embarked on “cost-cutting measures.”
According to a report by GMA News citing information from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Qatar, the contracts of the 60 Filipino workers at Qatari Diar Vinci Construction will be terminated on April 17 “in view of company’s down-sizing and cost-cutting measures.”
Some of the affected workers have been with the company for ten years, the report said.
Labor advocates have sounded the alarm over possible massive job cuts in the oil and construction sectors in the Middle East as oil prices continued to decline. However, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said it has not received any report regarding mass layoffs among Middle East Filipino workers.
While fears of job losses continue to hound Filipino workers in the Middle East, demand for jobs remain steady. In fact, POLO in Dubai reported that the number of verified job orders in March — 2,315 jobs in the service sector — rose by 48 per cent compared with the same period last year.
Likewise, a slight uptick in the number of verified job orders (11%) was observed by POLO Al Khobar in Saudi Arabia. In Oman, POLO observed “absence of any noticeable disturbance in OFW employment situation… that may be the result of oil price drop.”
The decrease in job orders, however, was realized in Bahrain, where the number of job orders processed dropped from 40 to 24.
“By and large, the above reports suggest that the on-going oil price fall has so far had no significant impact, hitherto, on OFWs currently employed,” the DOLE was quoted saying by GMA News.