POEA Administrator Hans Leo J. Cacdac warned recruitment agencies against charging placement fees from job applicants for New Zealand.

Cacdac said licensed recruitment agencies are not allowed to charge recruitment or placement fees from workers deployed to countries that prohibits collection of such fees.

Cacdac said the New Zealand Embassy in the Philippines has validated the existence of New Zealand's Wages Protection Act of 1983 which disallows employer to "seek or receive any premium in respect of the employment of any person, whether the premium is sought or received from the person employed or proposed to be employed or from any other person".

Section 3, Rule V, Part II of the POEA Rules and Regulations Governing the Recruitment and Employment of Land-based Overseas Workers provides that a recruitment agency may charge and collect from its hired workers as placement fee, an amount equivalent to one month salary, exclusive of documentation costs, except where the prevailing system where the worker is to be deployed, either by law or practice, does not allow charging or collection of placement and recruitment fee.

Cacdac said the penalty of cancellation of license, even on the first offense, awaits recruitment agencies found charging or collecting placement fee for deployment of OFWs to "no placement fee" countries.

Other countries that have prohibition on collection of placement fees are United States of America (H2B visa), Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands.

Cacdac advised job applicants to report to the POEA through its official Facebook page agencies that collect placement fees for New Zealand jobs and the other countries mentioned above.