Dollars sent home by sailors continue to buoy the overall remittances from migrant Filipino workers, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said in a press release.

The rate of increase in remittances from sea-based Filipino workers abroad continues to outpace considerably the growth rate in money transfers from land-based laborers, TUCP secretary-general, Ernesto Herrera said.

He said remittances from Filipino sailors increased by 5.52 percent or $41.851 million to $800.535 million in the first quarter against the $758.684 million in the same period in 2008.

In contrast, Herrera said cash wired home by land-based migrant Filipino workers grew by only 2.03 percent or $64.697 million to $3.256 billion in the first quarter compared to $3.191 billion in the same period last year, the press release said.

Herrera attributed the continued growth in remittances from sea-based Filipino workers increased deployment on account of global demographics.

He pointed out that despite the severe global recession, compared to a decade ago, the world’s economy and population today are much larger, thus requiring more ships to move all sorts of commodities faster across continents.

A growing number of American, European and Japanese sailors are fast approaching retirement age, and are being replaced wholesale by younger Filipinos, Herrera also said in the press release.

He added that Western and Japanese sailors are also increasingly shunning jobs on board ships, preferring shipping desk or port-related jobs instead.

Remittances from sea-based workers are also partly being propped up by Filipino hospitality workers on cruise ships, according to Herrera, who is former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development, the press release said.

Barring a catastrophic global economic depression, he said the over 350,000 Filipino sailors on foreign vessels at any given time could easily rise to 500,000 in five years.

In the first quarter, the top 10 sources of remittances from Filipinos sailors in millions were the United States – $399.912; Japan – $75.057; Norway – $70.351; Great Britain – $56.323; Germany – $50.82.

Remittances in millions also came from Singapore – $32.178; Greece – $29.342; Cyprus – $15.773; the Netherlands – $12.233; and Denmark –$11.054, the TUCP press release further said.*

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