The growth of remittance inflows reached 4.9 percent in February, a slight recovery from the near-flat growth of  0.1 percent in the previous month, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported Wednesday. It was, however, the slowest growth rate since February 2003 (3.7 percent).

Money sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFW) hit $1.3 billion in February, bringing the two-month total to $2.6 billion in 2009. The amount was slightly higher than $1.258 billion in the same month last year, but remittances in February 2008 represented a 15.9-percent increase from February 2007's.

The BSP attributed the slight improvement in remittance inflows to the increase in OFW deployment for the first two months of the year. Citing the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, the BSP said some 283,348 Filipinos were sent to work abroad in the January-February period, a 27.3 growth from 222,608 last year.

“Remittances have been holding up as deployment of overseas Filipino workers has risen during the first two months of the year while the increase in the number of reported layoffs has slowed down,” BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said in a statement.

OFWs apply for jobs abroad either on their own or by seeking the help of recruitment agencies. These agencies deploy workers depending on job orders from various countries.

The BSP is banking on high deployment of OFWs for the continued hike in remittances. But the Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. (PASEI) reported Monday that job orders for OFWs have slowed down this year, with 70 of their 700 recruitment agencies already shut down.

According to PASEI President Victor Fernandez, the effects of reduced job orders will be most felt starting this month, and will last until June this year.

"Basta sasabihin [ng POEA] ang umalis ngayon ganito akala ang dami pero actually it's the same people who will return to current and present employment (They'll just say many people were deployed, but actually they're the same people who will return here for employment)," Fernandez said.

The POEA counts OFWs who are newly hired for a job and those who are re-hired for the same job in their deployment data. Newly hired OFWs usually do not send money home on their first few months, so there tends to be a lag between their deployment and remittances attributed to them.

The government continues to give assurances that jobs overseas remain available to absorb Filipinos looking for employment. The Labor Department, for instance, said that it will renew labor arrangements with South Korea under the Employment Permit System.

In addition to hiring agreements forged with host countries such as Canada, Australia, Japan, and Qatar, the government said it has intensified its efforts to redeploy retrenched OFWs to countries which have not been hard-hit by the global economic crisis such as Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Aside from higher OFW deployment, the BSP noted that the expansion of commercial banks through tie-ups with remittance companies has helped sustain the inflow of remittances. These, the BSP said, have expanded channels for remittance growth in the country.

Remittances have been the primary fuel for consumer spending in the country, largely benefiting various industries such as retail, real estate, and telecommunications.

The World Bank earlier said that remittances from OFWs are expected to drop by 4 percent this year as a result of the global slowdown. This is lower than the bank's projected fall for developing countries for 2009 at 5 to 8 percent.

Total money sent home to the Philippines reached $16.4 billion in 2008, placing the country in the fourth spot in the world's top recipients of remittances.