Over 64,000 employment opportunities will be up for grabs in the resumption of face-to-face Labor Day jobs fairs spearheaded by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) next week.
Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique R. Tutay disclosed after two years of being held exclusively online with the onset of Covid-19, most of the Labor Day Jobs Fairs this year would now be held onsite.
“It will be a hybrid. There will be some areas, which will still have online [jobs fairs] at the same time there will also be those which will conduct physical [jobs fairs],” Tutay said at a virtual news conference on Monday.
Labor spokesperson Rolly Francia said a total of 64,485 jobs vacancies would be made available by 641 employers in 23 job fair sites nationwide on May 1, Labor Day.
Of which, 52,237 are for local applicants, while 12,248 are for overseas job seekers.
For local employment, top vacancies are for production or machine operator, customer service representative and collection specialist, while for overseas, these are nurse or nurse aide, food server, and household service worker.
Presidential participation
The main celebration of DOLE’s Labor Day celebration will be held in San Fernando, Pampanga.
Aside from the jobs fair, other highlights of the celebration include the Job Summit of the National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS) taskforce, as well as the inauguration of the first ever Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) hospital.
Tutay said President Duterte is expected to participate in the event either via video message or a personal appearance.
“We are already coordinating with the Office of the President for this,” Tutay said.
As for the Job Summit, he said the NERS Taskforce is expected to present its accomplishment to help the country’s labor sector to recover from the effects of the pandemic.
Completed target
Among the achievements, Tutay said, was the completion of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) commitment last year to generate 1 million jobs.
“This was achieved during the first quarter of 2022. But we have requested their detailed report on this,” Tutay told the BusinessMirror in a Viber message.
During the upcoming Job Summit, the NERS task force will present its transition plan on how to sustain the generation of more jobs.
“We believe that for the recovery process, we need to create more employment opportunities for our citizens, which we hope will be sustainable,” Tutay explained.
Image credits: DOLE-Negros Occidental