As the global financial storm blows fear through Asia's stock markets, Filipino maid Christy Arciaga is jittery - even though she does not own any shares. Her businessman employer has lately become more irritable as he has watched his investments being swallowed in a sea of red ink, and the 46-year-old domestic helper is often on the receiving end of his bad moods.
"My employer would turn on the television every morning to check the latest stock market report even before breakfast. He is often angry and tells me he might send me home even before my contract ends," Arciaga said.
"The thought of going back has caused me sleepless nights. What about my family? Two of my children are still in college." Thousands of migrant workers, among them maids, restaurant staff and labourers working in wealthy Asian cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong, are worried that an economic slowdown and retrenchments resulting from the crisis could hit their employers' pockets, and leave them without jobs.
This would mean that the flow of remittances they send home to their poor families will dry up - and with it money for food, clothing and school fees.
Another maid, Myra Catacutan, 34, said she recently heard her employer angrily talking on the phone with someone, presumably a financial adviser, demanding her money back. "My employer was shouting to the one on the other line: 'Give me back my money'. When she turned to me, she was teary-eyed and told me she could lose a big amount," she said. "I am worried she might let me go."
William Gois, regional co-ordinator of the non-government group Migrant Forum in Asia, said that any massive retrenchment would worsen poverty in the migrants' home countries.
"Families dependent on (overseas) remittances will find now that nothing is coming in and it might further aggravate the poverty situation," Gois said by telephone from Manila. The Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which are key exporters of human labour, would be most affected, he said.
The Philippine central bank has said money sent home by Filipinos working abroad totalled 9.6 billion US dollars for the first seven months of the year and is expected to hit a record 15.9 billion for the whole of 2008. Another problem is the large numbers of migrant workers without proper documents in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, Gois said.
"In times of an economic slump, the first thing that governments do is crack down on undocumented workers because they are seen as a burden to the economy and a problem to society," he said.
Gois said there are more than 53 million migrant workers from Asia employed world-wide, mostly in the Gulf countries and the Middle East. A high percentage are low and middle skilled labourers.
While there have been no reports so far of large layoffs, workers interviewed by AFP said they are worried. "Of course I am afraid," a Bangladeshi worker said in between drilling with a jackhammer near a suburban housing complex. "I don't understand much about the reason for the crisis but I'm just concerned my company will be affected."
In Singapore, sending home a maid could save a household at least 600 Singapore dollars (407 US) a month. Many of those who employ maids also dabble in stocks and other financial products whose value has been eroded because of the turmoil. With foreign visitor arrivals in Singapore falling for the third straight month in August, there could be retrenchments in restaurants and shops, which employ many Filipinos and mainland Chinese.
Any slowdown in the construction sector would affect thousands of migrant labourers from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Thailand and China. In Hong Kong, which is home to 150,000 Filipinos mostly employed as maids and in bars and restaurants, worries about fallout from the crisis have already begun to resonate through the tight-knit community.
"Migrant workers are very worried," said Eman Villanueva, secretary general of United Filipinos in Hong Kong, a migrant rights group. "They are first of all concerned about their jobs. Most of the people in Hong Kong who employ domestic workers will have investments or are facing potential job losses because of the financial crisis."
Villanueva said that many migrants were also concerned about the safety of their own investments. "Many have paid for education insurance to make sure their children are able to go to university, or into a pension. They are worried about what will happen to their money," he said.
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