The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration says more than eight million Filipinos, about one tenth of the country’s 86 million population, were working in 194 countries and territories around the world from tiny Palau in the Pacific to Equatorial Guinea in Africa.

The Philippines has become one of the world’s biggest exporters of workers, whose income now plays a central role in the country’s economy.

The Philippines has become one of the world’s biggest exporters of workers and now constitutes one of the biggest sectors of the country’s economy. Attracted by higher wages, the exodus is fast draining the Philippines of its skilled professional workforce such as teachers and nurses.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nurses and other medical workers are leaving the Philippines at the rate of at least 15,000 a year for better-paying jobs abroad, threatening the country’s health infrastructure. Jean Marc Olive, WHO country representative, warned that the exodus was expected to persist until at least 2015, with annual demand for medical workers in the United States and Europe estimated to be about 800,000.

In sectors such as aviation, pilots and engineers are being poached to meet the demand of the world’s rapidly expanding airline industry.

Some 250,447 Filipinos make up one of the biggest sectors of the world’s merchant navy, while in countries like Hong Kong and Singapore they constitute the bulk of domestic workers.