The Philippines is the largest supplier of seafarers globally, out of the 1.6 million seafarers on internationally trading merchant ships. The country is also the second biggest contributor of maritime officers, according to the International Chamber of Shipping.

Seafarers also remain to be the largest remitters despite only making 21 percent of the total number of overseas Filipino workers. According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Filipino seafarers on foreign vessels wired a total of $1.05 billion in cash remittances via banks from January to February this year, a 10.5-percent growth from $956.15 million during the same period in 2018.