THE deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) to Yukon, Canada has yet to begin pending the signing of the country’s bilateral agreement with the Canadian government.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the Yukon government is still studying the draft of the proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will enable OFWs to be employed in the Canadian territory through a “Nominee Program.”
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said the Nominee Program is a government-to-government system, which aims to validate the existence of guaranteed employment offers for OFWs in Yukon.
He issued the clarification after getting reports from the Philippine Overseas Labor and Office (Polo) of bogus job offers for Yukon online.
“A bilateral labor agreement has yet to be signed by the Philippines and Yukon, making the reported job offers spurious,” Bello said in a statement.
The fake job offers made use of the name of legitimate Yukon HR practitioners to dupe victims into paying $440 in exchange for nonexistent jobs.
“We are warning the public to be very cautious of this scam that seemingly capitalizes on the still-to-be finalized labor agreement between the Philippines and Yukon,” Bello said.
To avoid falling prey to similar scams, Bello urged jobseekers to first validate the authenticity of any job offer with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) through its web site, poea.gov.ph.
He also urged them to report to POEA such suspicious activities to the agency’s e-mail: info@poea.gov.ph.