Remittances may rise 7 percent by 2040, says World Bank

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June 15, 2026 | 12:00am

Expanded overseas job access

MANILA, Philippines — Remittances may rise by seven percent by 2040 if measures are put in place to expand access to overseas employment opportunities, according to the World Bank.

In a report titled “Building the Filipino Class: Toward Resilient Futures and Poverty Eradication,” the World Bank said the projected increase is based on a scenario of a narrowing gap in remittances among regions.

The scenario targets regions with below-average remittance receipts, with the Luzon average covering Regions I to V and Cordillera Administrative Region as the benchmark.

“The modeling assumes the gap between lagging regions and the target rate is reduced by 50 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2040, resulting in a projected seven percent national increase in remittances by 2040,” the World Bank said.

Last year, remittances from overseas Filipinos hit an all-time high of $35.63 billion, up by 3.3 percent from $34.49 billion in 2024.

Expanding access to more and better jobs, including overseas Filipino worker opportunities, is among the World Bank’s recommendations to accelerate poverty reduction in the country.

It said that international migration is one of the most direct pathways for lower-skilled workers, particularly women, to have better paying jobs, given that the Philippines is among the most institutionally advanced in terms of overseas labor deployment.

With the institutional foundation already in place, the World Bank said it is critical to determine how opportunities can be extended to areas where remittances can have the biggest impact.

It cited liquidity as a constraint in lagging regions, with migration financed primarily through family savings or informal loans.

As such, the World Bank recommends piloting targeted interventions including credit or grant programs to cover certification and pre-migration costs.

It also recommends emerging models like Global Skills Partnerships, which co-finance training in origin countries in line with the destination countries’ labor market needs.

“Given the local economic benefits from remittances and the higher costs of human capital investments and migration facing individuals in poorer, less-connected regions, reducing credit constraints for training and pre-migration costs in these regions could offer a promising pathway to expanding opportunities to poorer households,” World Bank said.