By Sarwell Meniano/Philippine News Agency
TACLOBAN CITY — Some 7,000 jobs are up for grabs at the Labor Day job fair in Eastern Visayas, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) announced Tuesday.
The fair, to be joined by 44 employers composed of government agencies, local business, and recruitment agencies offering overseas jobs, will be held at the Tacloban Convention Center on May 1.
It will also have a livelihood component for those interested in self-employment, such as counseling, product display and sales, franchising, sharing of success stories, skills training, and job generation tips.
“This is to give the unemployed the opportunity to find a job, and those with an entrepreneurial bent, an opportunity to earn an income. We encourage applicants to pre-register to make it easier to match a qualified applicant with an employer,” said DOLE Eastern Visayas Regional Director Yahya Centi in a press briefing at their field office here.
Pre-registration can be done at the Department of Labor and Employment field offices and Public Employment Service Offices in towns and cities.
Of the 7,000 job vacancies, about 6,000 are for overseas employment. The remaining slots are for jobs within the region.
For local jobs, participating employers are hotels and restaurants, department stores, business process outsourcing firms, and a private school.
“We expect that more jobseekers will be hired. We have several activities designed to fast-track the matching of job seekers and employers, particularly in identified industries where skills are highly in demand,” Centi told reporters.
The labor department advised jobseekers to bring the following requirements: multiple copies of resume, 2 x 2 ID photo, photocopy of training certificates, Professional Regulation Commission license (if applicable), certificate of employment for those who were previously employed, and transcript of records.
The region, composed of the provinces of Leyte, Samar, Biliran, Southern Leyte, Eastern Samar, and Northern Samar, has a workforce of about 2 million. Its employment rate stands at 95.8 percent in 2018.
Although the jobless rate is low at only 4.2 percent, the underemployment rate remains high at 21.4 percent, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The PSA defines underemployed as “employed persons who express the desire to have additional hours of work in their present job, or to have additional job, or to have a new job with longer working hours.”
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