The Department of Labor hopes that alien employment permits should have been issued to qualified foreign workers in the last 15 working days.

Bureau of Local Employment director Patrick Patriwirawan said under new guidelines

"Under the new guidelines, we have set the processing cycle to 15 working days only. We guarantee that within 15 working days, we can process the applications," said Patriwirawan in a radio interview Sunday.

Department of Labor and Employment records show that a total of 60,312 alien employment permits were released in 2024.

In the past, Patriwirawan said there was no strict timeline.

He said AEP issuances sometimes happen "weeks or months"after they have been applied for. DMS