Sen.Imee R. Marcos said Thursday registered Filipino nurses could consider taking up some 3,000 vacancies in five states in the US due to staffing shortages.
Marcos, chairwoman of the Senate economic affairs committee, issued the statement after spotting opportunities emerging for jobless nurses amid bleak forecasts of a surge in coronavirus disease-2019 cases worldwide after the Christmas holidays.
California, Texas, Florida, Minnesota, and New York top the list in the US where staffing shortages were noted.
Marcos said rising cases of infection across America have been aggravated by the fall-winter flu season, forcing nurses who used to shuttle in from other states to stay put.
“The cold reality is that America’s need for nurses answers our own need to curb high unemployment and put food on the table of whole Filipino families,” she said.
"The lack of a national policy on job creation and recovery has given the unemployed limited options," she added.
Marcos said that many overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are among the estimated 200,000 nurses who have lost work and come home or remain stranded in taking up jobs abroad since border controls began earlier this year to stop the spread of the pandemic.
As of September, almost 40 percent of the country’s adult labor force or more than 23 million people are out of work.
"Let's hope that the roll-out of vaccines accelerating next year will ease unemployment." Marcos said.