Austin discusses how remote jobs are keeping Filipino families together by bringing external income home instead of forcing parents to migrate abroad. A $400 monthly wage from online work can support an entire household and change a child's future in communities where that's several times the local average.
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The economy is super poor. There's all these dads, like they have to leave their families. And this is really emotional to me because there's a lot of single moms because their husbands can only return once every three months because the husbands have to leave their families and go work on the main island. But with like these husbands with this new opportunity where they can work at home and stay with their family instead of leaving their family, it helps strengthen the family and it's really amazing and it's really good for a lot of people.
Yeah, that's cool.
That's.
It's cool that. It's cool that, that we give that opportunity to people and it's changing lives.
Yeah. And like I didn't know growing up with like my dad running online jobs that it was just like. And I was like, okay, these like Filipinos, they just like change their work to this. But like, no, like these people need work and like there's a point where like they get temporary jobs and they'll only work for this job for like a month or so. And then like the jobs over, the contract's over, then they have no money. But like, this is a way for the Philippines to finally bring in money from like external money into the Philippines from other countries and, you know, keep the economy going. Because that's the kind of thing that actually strengthens an economy. And before they didn't have that. And that's why, part of the reason why it's such a poor economy without sending people overseas.
Because before they just send people overseas to bring money back in.
Yep. And that's still very popular. But now, for example, we have been a person that we're teaching and she has to leave right now. She has to leave her two little kids that are 8 and 9 years old. She has to fly to Hong Kong and be there for a year or two and work there for a year or two, leave her kids with her 90 year old mother to take care of them. And it sucks. And it sucks. And she said, we had our last visit with her last night and it sucks. And she asked us what am I missing? And I wanted to tell her it's the family, but he's missing two things in her life. It's the connection with her children and the connection with the Holy Ghost. And you know, if she had some sort of computer skills or she could apply online jobs like other people can, it was safer. So for the maybe hundreds of thousands of people that are actually getting jobs from online jobs, this is changing, like literally changing hundreds of thousands of lives.
So yeah, it's good. And I think a lot of employers don't even realize as like they think they're just hiring a person. They don't realize this is like a major, major opportunity for the people that they're hiring. It's changing, it's changing the that person's life. It's changing that person's kids lives, it's changing that person's parents lives, probably changing their grandkids lives that aren't even born yet because they'll, they'll grow up way more educated and have more opportunity just because their parents have worked for a foreign company. Their parents will teach their kids. No, you have to get some skills because you can do this. And their kids will teach their kids. And yeah, it's a big deal.
Yeah. And that's not just it. Not only does it bless those families lives, the kids lives like it's, you can see it, there's a clear difference in the people overseas, unless they have a business here. But even then, like these people, like they're able to supply for their neighbors. Like this is island culture. Like if someone's in need of food, they give food to their neighbor. And you know, like you said, the American employers are just hiring a person. But like this is like one person on a sitio which is a road. And that situ is struggling because they don't have work and they're seeking for work and then all of a sudden they have, I mean, imagine $400 a month coming to someone that's almost 20,000 pesos. And that can easily feed a family of five easily. And provide for their electric and water and clothes. And that is needing a life for.
Someone on this island that does.
Where you are on this island, it does easily. And it stops the men from having to move away from their families and be far away.
I didn't realize the power of it. I mean, I knew I, I knew it's doing that talking to you and hearing it from you is cool.
No, it's night and day. It's awesome. And I hope it can continue to grow, especially as the education system here continues to improve. Yeah, there's a lot of.
