by Hoss

By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 19:40:00 01/26/2009

Filed Under: Nursing matters, World Financial Crisis, Overseas Employment
Most Read



MANILA, Philippines—The deployment of Filipino nurses and other health-care professionals to the United States will not save the Philippines from the impending overseas employment crisis as the global financial crunch deepens, a recruiter said Monday.
The number of Filipino health-care professionals leaving for US jobs is on a decline for the past several years, Loreto Soriano said, citing records from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.
He said that since 2000, some 1,900 Filipino nurses have been deployed to the US for an average of 237 a year. In 2007, he said, the number was much lower at.
Due to the backlog in work-based immigrant petitions, he said, processing time has been between three to five years.
Foreign professionals who want to work in the United States are still restricted by stalled US immigration legislation.
Soriano said that while the US has a projected need for 1.2 million nurses by 2014, the new administration of President Barack Obama is unlikely to reverse the declining trend of hiring foreign health workers.


Story continues:

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/new...-hope-for-OFWs

Re: Nurses to usa not the answer to ofw crisis

Thank you for the post. Finally the is acknowledgment that out of 500,000 nurses only 0.0474 % came to the US in 2007. And who knows in 2008 but it is lower. You have better chances gambling!

I agree with the article that people in the US will not be sent home since they have been here awhile.

Re: Nurses to usa not the answer to ofw crisis

Hoss, your link went to a different article. Here is the correct link to the article you were quoting from:
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/new...-to-OFW-crisis

Re: Nurses to usa not the answer to ofw crisis

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It looks like that things will remain bleak for the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Filipino nurses who are still in the Philippines wanting to come here to the U.S. This January 2009 alone, hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their jobs. There are now more than 10 million jobless Americans. The economic recession is worsening and there is no telling when things will start looking rosy once again. Many Americans who've lost their jobs are going to nursing schools.

I don't think the U.S. government and the American public are currently in the mood to grant immigrant work visas. For Filipino nurses who have relative-based U.S. visa petitions, coming to the U.S. may be the faster way depending on the immigrant preference category they fall under.

The above mentioned report states that just an average of 237 Filipino nurses a year are granted the coveted U.S. greencard against the backdrop of 500,000 unemployed Filipino nurses. Imagine that!

Even the oil-producing Middle Eastern countries cannot absorb these unemployed Filipino in significant numbers to make a dent in their total numbers.

Nursing has become too popular among Filipino students for its own good. I feel sad that my former countrymen spent so much time, effort and money in order to be able to serve the ill and at the same time have a chance for a better life for themselves and their families, only to become victims of circumtences beyond their control.

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Re: Nurses to usa not the answer to ofw crisis

There are so many suggestions here on this forum for unemployed nurses to do better than wait and continue hoping for the much coveted green cards. There's nothing wrong with being hopeful but being realisitic is being needed today.

The continous surge of unemployed and underemployed nurses in the phil is adding to the negative image of her government and economy. The colonial mentality is still really prevalent since a lot has just "followed" to the trend: taking nursing for "greener pasteurs" not here but in another country. Maybe this is Jose Rizal's answer to those being quite "unpatriotic".