Tighter US immigration policies, weak job market could hurt PHL remittances

STRICTER visa and immigration policies in the United States could slow demand for Filipino workers and potentially dampen remittance inflows, analysts said.

- Katherine K. Chan

Pantheon Macroeconomics Chief Emerging Asia Economist Miguel Chanco said a weakening US labor market has started to affect remittances from US-based migrant Filipino workers.

"We're arguably already starting to see the softening in the US job market impact remittances from Filipinos there," Mr. Chanco told Business World in an email.

He noted that the growth in remittances from US-based Filipinos has slowed to 0.5% in August, "a far cry from its previous peak of 4.2% in the middle of last year."

"This ongoing slowdown certainly poses a downside risk to the BSP's (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) 3% growth assumption for remittances," he added.

In August, cash remittances grew by 3.2% to $2.977 billion from $2.885 billion a year ago.

This brought the cumulative cash remittances in the January-to-August period to $22.909 billion, 3.1% higher than the $22.217 billion seen in the same period last year. The bulk or 40.4% of the remittances came from US-based Filipino workers.

The BSP projects cash remittances to increase by 3% to $35.5 billion this year.

Since assuming office in late January, US President Donald J. Trump has tightened border enforcement, ordered a crackdown on illegal immigration and has moved to limit foreign workers.