Meanwhile the top 11 countries with the largest numbers of estimated Filipino workers of irregular status are the US (155,843 workers), Malaysia (128,000), Singapore (56,000), France (39,000), UAE (35,000), Japan (30,700), Saudi Arabia (20,000), Italy (13,000), South Korea (12,000) and Kuwait tied with the United Kingdom (10,000 each) - all together 509,543 which is 56.6%o of all irregular workers. This is alarge mass of Filipinos in particularly r,ulnerable situations. Permanent overseas Filipinos are immigrants or legal permanent residents abroad whose stay does not depend on work contracts. They are particularly concentrated in the three English-speaking countries of the US, Canada and Australia which are together home to 3.15 million or 85.30/o of permanent overseas Filipinos. Filipinos are the single largest national migrant group among seafarers and in recent years have accounted for 25-30o/o of all on-board seafarers. The CFO estimates 266,553 Filipino seafarers in 2007 which is a2.9%o drop from 2006 but still higher than the 193,000 a decade ago in 1998. The increase in the overall number of overseas Filipinos in the last decade is primarily due to increases in the number of permanent overseas Filipinos rather than of temporary/irregular Filipinos. The stock of permanent overseas Filipinos has been steadily rising while that of temporary and irregular workers has remained more or less stable. The stock of permanent overseas Filipinos has risen every year from 2.15 million in 1997 to 3.69 million lr:,2007. The combined stock of temporary and irregular workers on the other hand has remained more or less stable around an annual average of 4.80 million in the period 1997-2007 - with a low of 4.53 million in 2005 and a high of 5.03 million lrl.2007. Assuming that this CFO stock data is accurate it is possible that the rising deployrnents reported every year by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) mainly reflects a relative shift of Filipinos going abroad from irregular status to more formal contract-based work. The estimated number of irregular workers has noticeably fallen from 1.9 million in 1997 to 900,023 in2007, while that of temporary workers has risen from 2.9 million to 4.1 million over the same period. Annual OFW deployments have been inexorably rising for decades although the rate of growth has in general been slowing. The period 2001-2008 of the current administration has seen the most Filipinos forced abroad to find jobs in the country's history with deployrnents averaging 990,735 annually. This is a marked increase from the annual averages of 111,676 in 1976-80, 394,139 in 1981-1990 and728,820 in 1991-2000. Nonetheless the average annual rate of growth in recorded deployments has been falling from8.1oh over the period 1981-1990, to 7.2Yo in 1991-2000,to 5.lYo in 2001-2008. In 2008, OFW deployments by region were concentrated in Middle East (51.1% deployments), Asia (17 .8%) and Europe (4.2%). The top ten destinations of OFWs accounting for 82.60/o of deployed OFWs were SaudiArabia (28.3% of deployrnents), of