By Leslie Ann Aquino
Jobseekers on Tuesday flocked to the different job fairs that the Department of Labor and Employment organized for the Labor Day celebration.
Armed with their resumes, job applicants, mostly new graduates, scoured the lists of job vacancies that are available for both local and overseas employment.
Jobseekers queue at a job fair organized by the Department of Labor and Employment for the Labor Day Celebration, in Manila, May 1, 2018.
(ALI VICOY / MANILA BULLETIN)
The Labor Department earlier announced that more than 140,000 jobs will be made available to job seekers during their simultaneous job and livelihood fairs for Labor Day.
Of the job vacancies, 58,171 are for local employment while 89,914 are for overseas.
At the Quezon City Hall, DOLE Undersecretary Claro Arellano appealed to jobseekers to take advantage of the job fair.
He also appealed to employers to be more “flexible” in handling job applications.
“I highly encourage jobseekers to take advantage of the job fair opportunities. At the same time, I appeal to our partner employers to be flexible in their selection process by allowing our jobseekers to fill their job vacancies according to their skills, abilities, and experiences especially in our anticipated HOTS (hired on the spot)program,” said Arellano.
According to the him, DOLE recorded 2582 HOTS in NCR alone last year.
DOLE Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod said they wanted to see more jobseekers to be hired on the spot this year.
DOLE - National Capital Region (NCR) Director Henry John Jalbuena, meantime, explained that the job fairs are open to all including OFWs who recently arrived from Kuwait.
“We have a lot of available jobs.. This is one of the programs of the government to help those who came from Kuwait to find jobs here,” he said in an interview.
But if the jobs do not suit their qualification, Jalbuena said TESDA is there to help train them in upgrading their skills.
Based on the nationwide job fair result, as of 4 pm the number of HOTS is at 4,304 while the total near hire applicants is at 12,183.
Of the 34,359 job applicants that registered, 20,622 have qualified.
The top 10 vacancies for local employment are: combat soldiers, production machine operator, mason, customer service representative, construction worker, carpenter, call center agent, PDEA agent, production or factory worker and service crew.
For overseas, the top 10 are: nurses, technicians, construction workers, food and beverage, waiters/waitresses, drivers, cleaners, laborers, tire fitters, and engineers.