POEA warned vs charging excessive placement fees

Manila, Philippines - The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) yesterday warned recruitment agencies against charging applicants for employment abroad excessive placement fees.

POEA administrator Hans Leo Cacdac said these agencies should also observe the policy of some countries against collecting placement fees or their license will be revoked.

Cacdac cited Department of Labor and Employment Order No. 34, Series of 1996, POEA Governing Board Resolution Not. 2 and POEA Memorandum Circular No. 14, Series of 1999, all mandate a recruitment agency can only collect from its hired workers “an amount equivalent to one month salary, exclusive of documentation and processing costs.”

The POEA 2002 Rules and Regulations prohibit the “charging or accepting directly or indirectly any amount greater than that specified in the schedule of allowable fees prescribed by the Secretary, or making a worker pay any amount greater than that actually received by him as a loan or advance.”

This policy disallows the charging of such fees to seafarers and household service workers, Cacdac said.

“There is total prohibition on charging placement fees from Filipino household service workers, seafarers, and workers for deployment to countries which disallows placement fee collection,” he said.

These countries include United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands, which do not allow the collection of placement fee by recruitment agencies from foreign workers because the employers are the ones paying the cost of placement and recruitment services.

“The prohibition is also applicable to agencies that are deploying workers to the Canada provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia,” Cacdac added.

The “no placement fee” policy is also being implemented among agencies deploying workers to the US, including Guam.

Cacdac had advised Filipino jobseekers to pay the placement fee “only if they have signed an employment contract and a receipt corresponding to the amount paid is issued to them, and to avoid licensed recruiters that continue to defy the government’s placement fee policy which is clearly defined in various promulgations.”