AT least 100,000 jobs will be opened in the job fair organized by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) as part of efforts to provide employment to displaced laborers and repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
Peza Director General Charito B. Plaza on Tuesday said her agency is throwing all efforts to get 100,000 job slots available before the launch of its job fair on Monday. The job expo is one of the five components of the Development Outreach for Labor, Livelihood and Advancement of Resources, or DOLLAR, program.
Plaza said the job fair is meant to provide employment to workers who lost their income source to the coronavirus pandemic, especially returning OFWs.
“This [expo] is in support of repatriated OFWs who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. We also want to support the Balik Probinsya program. As such, this will be open for all ages and will be simultaneously launched in four public economic zones. Almost 100,000 jobs that are needed by our locators will be opened,” Plaza said in a virtual briefing.
More than 60,000 jobs are now secured to be made available for the launch on Monday, while another 30,000 are being discussed by the Peza with its locators, Plaza disclosed.
Of the approved job slots, nearly 24,000 are located in the Metro Manila and Southern Tagalog regions; over 14,000 are in the northern and central portions of Luzon; and 2,500 are in Visayas and Mindanao. Close to 20,000 jobs will also be opened when the 26 newly approved projects of the Peza become operational.
Further, the Peza Board is set to approve P2 billion worth of investments translating to 27 fresh projects seen to generate 3,694 jobs.
“Most of these jobs are in the information technology and BPO [business-process outsourcing] industries, as well as in manufacturing. We also have some opportunities in the creative sector, as a couple of firms are looking for graphic designers and the like,” the Peza chief said.
“Most of them will be situated in Metro Manila and Calabarzon; some are in Pampanga, Tarlac, Baguio and Ilocos; and the remaining are in Cebu, Iloilo and Mindanao,” she added.
The Peza will facilitate matching of the skills of the applicants and the requirements set by the employers. In compliance with social distancing protocols, the job fair will be done through an online platform, according to Plaza.
The expo is expected to gather applicants from different fields and ages, as millions of Filipinos are out of work right now due to the pandemic.
Based on the April Labor Force Survey, unemployment rate in the country rose to 17.7 percent, from 5.1 percent during the same period last year. In real number, this translated to about 7.25 million unemployed Filipinos, most of whom lost their jobs during the lockdown.
Image credits: Artist Render
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