Placement Fee Ban for New Zealand Deployment

POEA Memorandum Circular No. 09 is issued pursuant to Section 3, Rule V, Part II of the POEA Rules and Regulations Governing the Recruitment and Employment of Land-based Overseas Workers.
Section 3, Rule V, Part II allows a recruitment agency to 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, by law or practice, does not allow charging or collection of placement and recruitment fee.
POEA Memorandum Circular No. 09 applies the New Zealand law model because New Zealand’s Wages Protection Act 1983 validates rules on premium/placement-fee charging.

Section 12A of Wages Protection Act 1983 provides that no employer shall seek or receive any premium in respect of the employment of any person.
Section 12A bars the premium from being sought or received from the person employed or proposed to be employed or from any other person.
Section 12A provides that when an employer receives money in contravention of the premium ban—by deduction from wages or otherwise—the payee (or wage-deducted person) may recover the amount as a debt from the employer.
Section 12A provides that civil proceedings for recovery may be instituted in the Employment Relations Authority by the person or by a Labor Inspector designated under Section 223 of the Employment Relations Act 2000 on behalf of the person.

POEA Memorandum Circular No. 09 prohibits agencies recruiting and hiring workers for deployment to New Zealand from charging and collecting any recruitment and placement fee from those workers.
The ban covers both conduct of charging and conduct of collection by agencies for New Zealand deployments.

POEA Memorandum Circular No. 09 requires immediate and strict compliance by covered agencies.
Liberty T. Casco serves as Officer-in-Charge for the issuance of the circular.