Demand for nurses down, technical jobs surge - DOLE

MANILA, Philippines - The demand for nurses abroad has started to decline, while opportunities for graduates of technical courses like engineering are on the rise, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said yesterday.

“There are 125,000 jobs for engineers in Qatar as of now but we only supplied 26,000 because we don’t have enough engineering graduates to qualify for the jobs,” Labor Secretary Marianito Roque told reporters after attending a congressional hearing on the accomplishments of President Arroyo from the time she delivered her State of the Nation Address last year.

Roque said engineers face job opportunities with the same competitive salaries offered to medical staff.
He said the DOLE could hardly meet the demand for Filipino engineers, information technology experts and other jobs requiring technical skills in Qatar for construction, oil and gas fields.
With this in mind, he advised students to enroll in technical courses.
7/14/09 Philippine Star Click title above to read the complete article

Guam expected to hire Filipino construction workers by 2012 and construction workers soon

MANILA, Philippines — Guam will be needing Filipino construction workers l, a recruitment consultant said on Sunday.

Deployment of Filipino construction workers to Guam is expected to start by the first quarter of 2010.

Last week, Guam officials arrived in Manila for consultations with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Philippine Chamber of Commerce, Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc. (PASEI), Philippine Construction Association on the hiring of Filipino construction workers.

POEA and recruitment industry officials warned, however, that recruitment has yet to start and there are still no job orders available for Filipinos aspiring to work in Guam.

POEA administrator Jennifer Manalili said a proposed employment contract that would be acceptable to both parties is still being drafted.

Manalili said Filipinos would not spend much for their job applications in Guam because the US government had recently declared that there should be no placement fee in the recruitment of foreign workers in the mainland and the territories. click this link to read the complete article GMA News

Guam to hire 25,000 foreign workers

MANILA, Philippines - Guam is opening its door to at least 25,000 foreign workers including Filipinos over the next five years, a ranking official said yesterday.

In a press conference, Guam Governor Felix P. Camacho said a total of $15 billion worth of new investments will be coming into their country. As a result, he announced that there will be a need to hire foreign workers given that there are only 5,000 workers in Guam.

In order to address their severe shortage in labor force once the investments come in, Camacho said they will immediately need 8,000 to 10,000 overseas workers. Of these, he said 80 percent will be in the construction industry.

Camacho said the large scale recruitment will commence late this year and early next year because most of the vertical constructions will begin late 2010. For healthcare workers, Camacho said they will be needing more nurses and therapists because they expect their population to grow by 25 percent in the next four to six years. “There is a need for that (healthcare professionals),” Camacho stressed.

Click here to read the complete article 7/1/09 Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=482551&publicationSubCategoryId=66

Pasig-based call center opening second RP site in Bacolod; to hire 2,000

BACOLOD — Outsourced service provider Transcom Asia is hiring 2,000 call center agents for its Bacolod operations that will commence next month, the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has announced.

Click here to read the complete article 6/29/09 Business World http://www.itmatters.com.ph/news.php?id=063009b&src=2

Barista crash course for out-of-school youth

CEBU, Philippines – The growing demand for baristas both in the local and foreign market prompted Cebu Holdings Inc. (CHI), together with partner institutions, to offer a free crash-course program for out-of-school-youths residing in the six barangays near Cebu Business Park and Cebu Asiatown IT Park.

CHI along with the University of Southern Philippines Foundation, and Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA) recently presented 17 graduates of the Barista crash course, which aims to provide employment to these young individuals, or encourage them to engage in small coffee shop business.

“The program dubbed TASA meaning “Tambayayong Aswat Sugod-sunod Asenso is a project created to meet the needs of the members of our community in the areas of education towards employment and entrepreneurship. It also means Team Assistance for Skills Advancement,” said CHI corporate communications manager Vera Alejandri

In cooperation with TESDA and USPF, the 17 out-of-school-youth chosen from barangays Apas, Camputhaw, Carreta, Hipodromo, Luz and Mabolo officially got their skill’s certification with hands-on training in support with the well-known coffee shops like Bo’s Coffee Club, Figaro, Gloria Jeans, and Seattle’s Best

To read the complete article click here 6/25/09 Philippine Star

check out job links on the right side too for more jobs

Mynimo posts about 250 to 300 jobs a day. As of yesterday, the job site posted 264 local vacancies-38 of which were managerial and supervisory positions; 36 were related to IT; 34 involved sales, marketing or retail; and 31 were accounting and finance-related jobs.

Incompetence cripples RP workforce

CEBU, Philippines - An advocate of the Philippine Business for Education said the underlying problem hounding the country’s manpower resources lies on the lack of competence of the applicants rather than on the perception of a “skills mismatch"

Salazar revealed that most respondents in the said survey complained on their manpower’s ability to communicate, the lack of confidence and skills to speak and explain as well as do critical and independent thinking.

Quoting the mean percentage scoring from the 2004 to 2005 National Achievement Test for High school student results, Salazar said that only 71 percent pass English competency exams and 44 percent has low mastery over the subject matter while only 16 percent pass in Math while only two percent pass in the Science subject

He said that the short education cycle in the country has also affected the quality of our education because the basic education, which should be spent for an average of 12 years is cramped to fit into the 10 years cycle which we are practicing Click this link to read full article Philippine Star 6/13/09

Hanjin to hire 24,000 more

Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Corp. will hire 24,000 more Filipino workers for its Subic and Misamis Oriental plants, the government announced on Tuesday. Click this link to read full article Manila Times 6/3/09

From nurses to seamen

DID you know 1: This year’s batch of 300 scholars of the Development Bank of the Philippines’ (DBP) Endowment for Education Program are high school graduates who want to take maritime and technical/vocational courses (read: the scholarship is for the entire course, not just for one year, and there are no strings attached).
Aside from being smart, the main qualification of each scholar is extreme poverty. The sob stories of many of these scholars are for real.

Mind you, DBP actually checks out financial situation of all applicants, starting with the branch manager who talks to the family and friends of the applicant within his/her branch jurisdiction.

Last year, the DBP scholarship focused on nursing but the supply for nurses in the next five to 10 years is expected to exceed demand both here and abroad. Click this link to read full article 6/7/09 Business Mirror

South Korea to hire 8,000 filipino workers until 2011

South Korea, in a memorandum of understanding that iT signed with the Philippines on Sunday, guaranteed the hiring of 8,000 Filipinos to work in South Korea every year for the next three years. Click this link to read full article 6/1/09 Manila Times