{"id":10838,"date":"2020-10-12T21:49:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T21:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=10838"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:04:07","slug":"pogo-exodus-number-of-foreign-worker-applications-halves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pogo-exodus-number-of-foreign-worker-applications-halves","title":{"rendered":"POGO exodus: number of foreign worker applications halves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There were 49 per cent fewer requests for permits between January and September compared to the same period last year.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippines.-&nbsp;The&nbsp;number&nbsp;of foreign nationals applying for permission to work in the Philippines for offshore gaming operators (POGOs) has fallen by half.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A source from the\u00a0Bureau of Local Employment told The Enquirer that\u00a073,640 applications for alien employment permits (AEP) were received from January to September, a drop of 49 per cent compared to the same period in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About&nbsp;84.46 per cent of those permits were for foreign nationals employed by POGOs. Of those,&nbsp;89.03 per cent were given to Chinese nationals. Vietnamese, Malaysian and Indonesian workers account for most of the remaining 10 per cent.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inbound travel restrictions have had an impact on the number of foreign workers seeking employment in the Philippines.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the same time many POGOs have shut down permanently since the Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has warned POGOs they would need to settle their debts with foreign workers as well as the tax authorities in order to get permission to restart operations after lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, the Philippine government is also looking to increase its income from the gaming industry <strong><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-seeks-to-double-tax-income-from-pogos\" target=\"_blank\">via tax hikes<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, in order to raise funds for pandemic relief efforts.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There were 49 per cent fewer requests for permits between January and September compared to the same period last year.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Philippines has experienced a 49% decline in foreign national work permit applications for offshore gaming operators (POGOs) between January and September, predominantly affecting Chinese nationals. This reduction is attributed to inbound travel restrictions, permanent POGO shutdowns following tax debt warnings from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and the government's intent to increase gaming industry taxes for pandemic relief funding.","focusai_entities":"Bureau of Local Employment, The Enquirer, Philippine Bureau of Internal Revenue","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (1.0), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO Tax Revenue Impact","query":"What is the projected impact of the proposed tax hikes on the Philippine government's revenue from the gaming industry, specifically from POGOs, and how does this compare to the revenue loss from POGO shutdowns?"},{"label":"POGO Market Consolidation","query":"How might the current operational challenges and regulatory pressures lead to market consolidation or a shift in the operational base for offshore gaming operators previously domiciled in the Philippines?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16333],"tags":[128,15789,21723],"class_list":["post-10838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-philippines","tag-pogos","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10838"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21630,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10838\/revisions\/21630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}