MANILA, Philippines — A total of 23,485 Filipinos here and abroad have lost their jobs as a direct result of the global financial crisis, the Department of Labor and Employment said Tuesday.

Since the crisis started taking its toll in October, 19,443 workers have lost jobs in the Philippines and 4,042 overseas, department spokesman Jay Julian said.

Among the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), "most of those who lost their jobs abroad are from Taiwan," he said. OFW job cuts attributed to the crisis were also reported in South Korea, Macau, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Russia, Poland and Australia, he added.

In the Philippines, 33,936 workers have been asked to take flexible work hours as a way of coping with the crisis, Julian said.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said Tuesday that 6,233 of its members had been directly affected by economic downturn — 2,933 were laid off and 3,300 were given flexible hours.

"This is separate from the government figures. We are doing our own headcount," TUCP spokesman Alex Aguilar said.

When asked whether the TUCP, one of the biggest labor groups in the Philippines, had an estimate of total job losses in the next couple of months, Aguilar said, "We are not in a position to make any projections."

Most of the workers affected are in the garments, electronics and furniture industries, Aguilar said. "We lost a union in Cebu and three factories closed shop in Valenzuela, all in the furniture business," he said.

The TUCP was calling on the labor department to fast-track its short-term and long-term safety-net programs for displaced workers, the spokesman added.

It welcomes a tripartite summit — with the government, the employer sector and the labor sector to be represented—that has been called by the labor department for this Thursday and Friday.

"This summit is important so that we are able to generate information and data on how many were really affected,” Julian said. “It is important that everyone is on the same page."