ILOILO – A total of 125 applicants were hired on the spot at yesterday’s job fair of the Iloilo provincial government’s Public Employment Service Office (PESO).
These applicants landed local employment (sales specialists, cashiers, service crew, and production crew), according to PESO chief Francisco Heler Jr.
The job fair was held at the Grand Xing Imperial Hotel. It attracted 1,318 jobseekers, 79 local companies and 14 overseas (land-based) companies.
Six persons with disabilities (PWDs) and 13 senior citizens participated, too. They applied as information technology technicians.
Heler said inclement weather due to typhoon “Tisoy” may have discouraged more people especially from northern Iloilo from participating.
In past December job fairs, applicants reached between 2,500 to 3,000, he said.
A total of 42,327 employment opportunities were made available yesterday.
The job fair was timely. The number of jobless Filipinos climbed to 21.5 percent in the third quarter of 2019, according to a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.
An estimated 10 million adults identified themselves as unemployed. This is higher compared to the 9.8 million (20.7 percent) jobless Filipino adults in June and the 9.4 million (19.7 percent) in March, SWS said in its study conducted from Sept. 27 to 30, 2019.
Of the 42,327 job vacancies, 12,687 were overseas employment, said Heler. These were for the following:
* Saudi Arabia – waiters, engineers, nurses, plumbers
* United States of America – nurses, physical therapists
* United Kingdom – nurses, restaurant crews
* Qatar – plumbers, HVAC technician
* Japan – scaffolders, manual welders, spray painters
* New Zealand – masons, carpenters, tillers
Other available local employments were for online tutors, customer service representatives, nurses, restaurant crew, office staff, drivers, and maintenance personnel./PN
