Kadayawan jobs fair in Davao to open 2,000 jobs

for HRM grads

By Manuel T. Cayon

DAVAO CITY —A maritime placement firm would be the biggest job hirer in a jobs fair in this year’s episode of Mindanao’s festival of festivals, the Kadayawan fruit-harvest festival.

The Magsaysay Maritime Corp. would be one of the companies that would join the jobs fair, but it would be the expected crowd-drawer because of the big number of what it wanted to take in for employment.

Joji Ilagan-Bian, chairman of the Mindanao Technical Vocational Education and Training Association, said the maritime company would want to take in more than 2,000 jobs in the fair, mostly Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM)-skilled applicants.

The Magsaysay Maritime Corp. is a placement firm for its clients, which consist mostly of cruise and luxury ships abroad.

The jobs fair would form part of the 3rd Mindanao Travel and Tour Expo 2008, the first of the series of activities in preparation for the weeklong Kadayawan harvest festivities.

Nineteen companies have already confirmed participation as exhibitors, including flag-carrier Philippine Airlines and even the Indonesian Consulate office here, which, Bian said, would also promote tourism destinations in Indonesia.

Bian said the majority of these exhibitors would promote their respective companies and localities, in the case of the provincial governments of Davao del Norte and Sarangani, and destinations they cover, in the case of tour operators.

“We would like also to see if the needs  of the tourism sector would match  the skills of the voc-tech [vocational-technical] graduates,” she said.

Armando Aquino, provincial director for Davao del Sur and Davao City of the Technical Education Skills Development Administration (Tesda), said that about 70 percent of the graduates of vocational and technical schools in these areas are into HRM and tourism-related courses.

Davao City has more than 100 vocation and technical schools and Davao del Sur has 20 schools. Of the two areas alone, they graduated 74,000 students in 2005, increasing to 76,000 the following year, and jumped to 98,000 last year.

Aquino assured that these schools were churning out graduates in accordance with the standards set by the government, and which Tesda “is continually monitoring.”

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Kadayawan jobs fair in Davao to open 2,000 jobs for HRM grads

DAVAO CITY —A maritime placement firm would be the biggest job hirer in a jobs fair in this year’s episode of Mindanao’s festival of festivals, the Kadayawan fruit-harvest festival.

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