Impact of Work-Related Stress To The Overseas Filipino Workers in Saudi Arabia and Middle East

 By: Academic PH

“I don’t know what went wrong. He rang up his wife on Sunday evening and said he was suffering from a severe headache and that he intended to kill himself,” - His friend told Khaleej Times, a daily English language newspaper published in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

On 2017, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates took his own life by hanging himself inside his flat.  “G.L.,” a 31-year-old gas station employee, hanged himself from a ceiling fan using his necktie and leather belt.  According to a friend close to the deceased Filipino, he made a distressing call to his wife in the Philippines after finishing his graveyard duty on Sunday. Another friend said, “We are all sad. He was sometimes depressed but we advised him that things will be all right.” “He was a good basketball player, bodybuilder and maintained a good sense of humor. His mother works in Australia,” they echoed. (Catolico, 2017).

 This is the content on some of the news that we heard from abroad. The story of G.L. symbolizes the struggle of many OFWs who have experienced work related stress and were not able to cope up thus; it has further led to suicide. Work-related stress is the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope. (“Stress at the workplace”, n.d.)

Work related stress is a global issue affecting workers at all level across the world. Organizations from different countries have provided some helpful guide and coping strategies to combat work related stress. American Psychological Association’ Annual stress survey in America has consistently found that work is cited as a significant source of stress by majority of Americans and thus, provided some steps to cope up with work related stress such as tracking the stressors, developing healthy responses, establishing boundaries or proper time management, taking time to recharge, learning how to relax and getting some support from trusted friends and family members.("Coping With Stress at Work", 2018).

Moreover, the National Jewish Health has provided the following seven coping strategies to deal with stress: Keeping a positive attitude, accepting that there are events that you can’t control, learning to relax, be active regularly, eating well-balance meals, rest and sleep and finding your stressors and effective ways to cope with them.  (Lukowski, 2015).

On the other hand, the impact of workplace stress goes beyond just the effects it causes at work. All aspects of life tend to be impacted by the stress they feel on the job. America's survey reported that employees believed that this stress adversely impacted their performance, work quality, and relationships with colleagues and superiors. To combat the effects of stress, many individuals admitted that they have turned to prescription medication to manage the stress and related symptoms, such as emotional problems, insomnia, and nervousness. Others have turned to alcohol or drugs to deal with the effects of intense daily stress or some continue to suffer substance abuse relapses related to the stress. Many find solace in food, caffeine, and smoking. None of these temporary solutions are healthy, nor do they actually provide any real lasting relief from stress. Instead, these brief "fixes" can put you at risk for many other additional stressors such as addictions that are difficult to get past and may even compromise your career, health and personal life. (Agrawal, 2016).

Meanwhile, Filipinos keep on receiving compliments about how resilient they are because they are all able to cope with very stressful situations such as calamity and poverty (Tan, 2006). The country was even ranked as the 20th happiest country in the world according to the Happy Planet Index (Jeffrey, Wheatley, & Abdallah, 2016) despite socio-economic difficulties. Thus, it is interesting to look at how a developing country citizens like Filipinos cope up with stress and identifies which coping strategies are used when dealing with and managing stressful life experiences especially at work.

For Filipinos, Working abroad has been seen as one of the better opportunities to uplift a person’s own standard of living. Hence, this proves why overseas Filipino workers presence can be seen in many countries across the globe. In 170 countries, there are around 1 million OFWs in Saudi Arabia alone, followed by Japan, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan. This makes Saudi Arabia the top OFW destination in the world. This country is currently the largest hirer of OFWs and has the largest Filipino population in the Middle East.  Filipinos make up the fourth-largest group of foreigners in Saudi Arabia, and are the second-largest source of remittances to the Philippines. Most of them are engineers, nurses or hospital workers, accountants, office workers, construction workers, restaurant workers and maids.

Currently, the construction market in the Middle East is growing at a faster pace than any other region in the world in 2017, according to BMI Research’s recent report. Industry experts revealed that heat stress remains a major concern for the safety of construction workers in the UAE and surrounding region, as the infrastructure projects are rapidly growing in the Middle East and North Africa, with an expected spending worth US$280bn by 2018.(Saudi Gazette, 2017).

Beyond these figures, however, lies the undeniable truth that Filipinos face a lot of challenges as they seek a better opportunity abroad. One of the greatest challenges of OFWs is to cope up with stress.