THE slow growth of remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) foretells further depressed consumption and growth in the economy, as well as deteriorating welfare for millions of remittance-dependent households around the country, a private research group said on Tuesday.

Ibon research group based its comment on data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) which showed slow growth of OFW remittances with year-on-year growth of just 2.2 percent in April which is down from 3.1 percent in March and 4.9 percent in February.

The deepening global crisis, Ibon said, has actually already caused overseas remittances in the first quarter of 2009 to fall in 11 out of the 20 countries, which account for 96 percent of overseas remittances back to the Philippines. Remittance growth in another four countries, meanwhile, is already slowing and could soon also turn negative, it said.

Ibon said the shrinking or slowing of remittances across so many countries underscores the global nature of the turmoil and how OFWs are not immune or “recession-proof.” As it is, remittances by Filipinos from 67 countries have shrunk with those from dozens more countries already slowing, it said.

Ibon said, “These are all indications that the country’s cheap labor-export policy may be reaching its limits in the face of global migration trends in the last years and the global turmoil since last year. More than ever, economic policies have to be geared toward creating domestic jobs through real agrarian reform, agricultural development and building Filipino industry.”

BSP data said the largest decrease was in remittances from the United States which shrank 9.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year. The $1.68 billion in remittances from the US in the January to March 2009 period was $168.3 million less than the $1.84 billion in January to March 2008. In 2008, Filipinos in the US accounted for 48 percent of remittances back to the country.

The government has tried to play up how the number of Filipino migrant workers is continuing to expand and how it is able to find alternative work for displaced workers. If this is true, the research group said, the falling remittances, however, imply that their average earnings are dropping with correspondingly less income on a per household basis.

The depressed consumption and economic growth is not just a result of a tendency to save amid crisis by migrant workers and their families, but also because remittances are dropping to begin with, Ibon stressed.

Also shrinking were remittances from the United Kingdom (13.8 percent fall), Italy (23.2 percent), United Arab Emirates (6.5 percent), Hong Kong (15.9 percent), Taiwan (37.5 percent), Bahrain (11.2 percent), Kuwait (58.6 percent), Qatar (4.9 percent), South Korea (22.8 percent) and Spain (1.6 percent). The 11 countries remitted a total of $335.3 million less in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year.

Remittances from Saudi Arabia, Canada, Singapore and Australia were still growing but at slower rates compared to previous years. Only five countries—Japan, Germany, Norway, Greece and Malaysia—recorded faster growth rates in remittances in the first quarter.

These, however, barely compensated for the falling remittances in the other countries, and growth in overall remittances slowed to just 2.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009 from 13.2 percent growth in the same period last year and 24 percent in 2007.

These top 20 remittance-sending countries accounted for a total $3.85 billion in remittances or 96 percent of the $4.06 billion total in the first quarter of 2009.