The Philippines is one of the most popular offshore hiring destinations for New Zealand businesses. A large, educated, English-fluent workforce, a time zone that suits NZ hours, and salaries below local rates make it a practical market for businesses looking to grow.
Finding good people is only part of it. The businesses that keep their Philippine teams for years are the ones that take the employment relationship seriously. They understand what their people value and they employ them that way.
Why hire in the Philippines?
Every year, hundreds of thousands of graduates enter the Philippine workforce in accounting, IT, engineering, business administration, and the creative disciplines. These are the roles New Zealand businesses hire for most often, and the supply is deep and consistent.
English is an official language. The Philippines scores 569 on the EF English Proficiency Index, ahead of Switzerland and above the global average of 488.
Many Filipino professionals have spent years working with western organisations. They are used to western working styles and expectations, so onboarding is quick. They work hard, they care about doing the job well, and they stay with employers who treat them right.
The Philippines sits four to five hours behind New Zealand depending on the time of year. Filipino professionals on NZ hours work during their day, which makes NZ employers popular in the local job market.
Fixed broadband download speeds average around 105 Mbps, up from about 63 Mbps in 2022, and a national fibre backbone is being rolled out across the country. Home-based remote work is practical for most professional roles.
Salaries sit below New Zealand rates across most professional disciplines.
For a New Zealand business owner, the draw is not only the cost. It is having someone who learns your customers by name, remembers why a call was made two years ago, and picks up the phone already knowing the context.
You get that from people who stay.
How do you hire properly in the Philippines?
Filipino employees are entitled to statutory benefits, the same way NZ employees receive KiwiSaver, paid leave, and ACC. These include:
- SSS: social security for sickness, maternity, disability, and retirement.
- PhilHealth: national health insurance, funded equally by employer and employee.
- Pag-IBIG: subsidised housing loans and a savings scheme.
- 13th month pay: a full month's extra salary, paid before Christmas.
The Philippines has no universal public healthcare and no ACC equivalent. SSS is what protects a worker and their family if they get sick or can no longer work. PhilHealth is what keeps a hospital visit from wiping out a family's savings. Pag-IBIG opens up housing loans at rates and terms most workers could not otherwise reach. 13th month pay goes into household budgets months ahead of December, covering school fees, family obligations, and Christmas.
These things make a huge difference to the life of a Filipino employee.
SSS is the income a family falls back on when someone is out of work for months. PhilHealth is the difference between treating a parent's illness and going without.
A Pag-IBIG loan is how a lot of people buy their first home.
These are the things a Filipino professional checks before accepting a job, and the things they remember when a better offer arrives. They know what proper employment looks like, and they can tell when an employer is taking it seriously and when they are not.
People who feel secure in their work become invested in the business they work for. They stay longer, learn the business more deeply, and look out for it the way you would want them to. People who feel temporary do the opposite. They do what is asked, keep their CV current, and move on when a better offer arrives.
Managing all of this from New Zealand needs a locally registered entity. SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG each have their own contribution schedules, filing requirements, and deadlines. Payroll runs monthly in pesos, tax is withheld, and returns go to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. 13th month pay has to be calculated and paid on time.
Setting up and running a local entity to do all this is a lot of work for a small business, it's extremely expensive, and for most it is not an option.
What happens when you get it wrong?
Get the employment relationship wrong and you lose people.
A Filipino professional engaged as a contractor, without statutory entitlements or a proper contract, is one better offer away from leaving. The market is competitive and other employers are ready to offer proper employment.
A contractor arrangement tells the person the business is not committed to them. That feeling does not stay quiet in the background. It shapes how much they put into their work, how connected they feel to the team, and how seriously they take the role. Someone who feels dispensable treats the role as dispensable.
When someone leaves, you pay for it. You recruit a replacement, onboard them, and carry the slow weeks while they find their feet. Knowledge of how the business runs goes out the door with them. Relationships across the team reset. Work that lived in one person's head has to be rebuilt from scratch. For a small business built around a key offshore hire, losing that person puts the whole operation at risk. The rest of the team feels it too. They watched a colleague go, and they draw their own conclusions about how secure their role is.
The businesses that struggle most with retention are usually the ones that took shortcuts at the start. An informal arrangement looks easier on day one and caps the relationship from then on. There is nothing solid underneath it, and the person feels that long before they say anything.
The risk is not only that people leave. A Philippines-based paralegal engaged by a Brisbane law firm as an independent contractor filed an unfair dismissal claim with Australia's Fair Work Commission after she was let go. The Commission looked at how the arrangement actually worked. They didn't consider that the fact she was offshore meant she should be treated any differently to any other employee.
She kept set hours under direct supervision, used the firm's systems, and did work central to the business. It ruled she was an employee, and the decision held on appeal.
While this case happened across the Tasman, it demonstrates that physical distance is no barrier to consequences for a poorly-managed employment relationship, and it may only be a matter of time before something similar happens in New Zealand.
Why use an Employer of Record, and why Deel?
An Employer of Record, or EOR, legally employs your hire in the Philippines on your behalf. You manage the person day to day. The EOR handles the contract, payroll, contributions, tax, and compliance.
To employ someone formally yourself, you need a local entity, a local accountant, and local legal support. For most small businesses that is not an option, and an EOR is how they hire in the Philippines without it.
VentureX recommends Deel for Kiwi companies hiring in the Philippines. Through Deel's wholly owned local entity, you get compliant employment from day one, without needing to set up your own Philippine company.
Deel runs a wholly owned local entity in the Philippines. Through that entity, Deel:
- Onboards your hire in days.
- Calculates, pays, and files SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, and 13th month pay on time.
- Runs monthly payroll, withholds tax, and handles BIR filings.
- Employs your hire as an employee, which removes misclassification risk.
- Bills your NZ card at a flat price with no hidden fees.
- Gives you payroll, reporting, and team tools on one platform.
The division of labour is simple. You decide what your hire works on, set their hours, and manage them day to day. Deel is the legal employer, which is what carries the payroll, the contributions, and the compliance.
For your hire, this is proper employment from day one. They have a contract they can show a bank, a landlord, or a government office. They get a payslip every month. Their SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG contributions are paid on time, which is what gives them access to the loans, the healthcare, and the entitlements they build their lives around. They are an employee, and they are treated like one.
Being able to offer proper employment changes who you can hire and who you can keep. The strongest Filipino professionals are not chasing contractor work. They assess an employer the way any professional assesses a job offer, and the quality of the employment is part of what they are judging. Deel lets you meet that standard from day one.
How do you get it right from the outset?
Hiring in the Philippines works when you treat it like any employment relationship. The talent is there, the time zone works, and the numbers add up for businesses at most stages of growth.
Filipino professionals are not after anything unusual from an employer. They want what any professional wants: security, respect, and somewhere that values them. Their statutory entitlements are the foundation of that, and meeting them is how you show someone you intend to keep them.
Get it right and the relationship builds on itself. The person who felt secure in their first year is the one training your next hire by year three, catching a problem before it reaches a customer, and treating the business as if part of it were theirs.
With Deel you do not need a local entity, a local accountant, or a working knowledge of Philippine labour law. Through Deel's wholly owned Philippine entity you get compliant contracts, peso payroll with tax withholding and BIR filings, full SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, and 13th month pay management, flat pricing, and no misclassification risk, all on one platform.
If you are hiring in the Philippines, or you have people there on contractor arrangements you want to put right, we can help. VentureX sources and screens to find you the right person. Deel employs them.