…Just before Christmas, around 500 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in New Zealand lost their jobs when labor-hire and recruitment firm ELE Group went under receivership. While accounting firm Deloitte, the receivers of the ELE Group’s companies, estimates around 500 Filipinos were affected, the actual number could be up to more than 700, according to an open letter from the workers…

…when a company is in receivership, it is placed under control of a trustee because it could not meet its financial obligations. A receivership is a measure that could prevent a company’s looming bankruptcy…

… just working for a labor-hire company already puts OFWs in an unstable position…

… workers’ union FIRST Union and OFW rights group Migrante Aotearoa, both based in New Zealand, helped the workers get by through food packs given to them…

When ELE recruits its workers, they work for various construction, logistics, and healthcare firms…

… Exploitative companies hire these fixed-term employees and continuously renew their contracts to avoid giving the benefits that a regular worker is lawfully entitled to…

…ELE’s receivers from Deloitte, said that the company went into receivership because it had “run out of cash.”…

Webb explained that the collection of the final pay from ELE’s clients was “slower than [they] would have hoped” due to the holidays…