The Department of Migrant Workers in the Philippines has formally ordered all private recruitment agencies and licensed manning agencies to assist overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were unable to leave the country due to the New Year’s Day air traffic system outage, reports PhilStarGlobal.

In an advisory dated 3 January 2023, Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople also instructed recruitment and staffing firms to send the department reports on the status of the workers and contact their employers regarding the incident.

“All private recruitment agencies and licensed manning agencies are directed to assist affected OFWs in explaining the cause of such delays to principal and employers to ensure that workers’ employment are secure and unaffected," Ople said.

The Department of Migrant Workers had provided hotel accommodation and transportation for OFWs across the country whose flights were delayed and rescheduled. Flights to and from the Philippines were left in limbo last Sunday after an outage of the country’s air traffic management system that affected around 56,000 passengers, including around 3,000 OFWs.