by Lorie Ann A. Cascaro
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) region 11 was able to solicit some 13,200 jobs last Labor Day from 80 employers (local and overseas) during job fairs in the region, Lariele Arce, labor employment officer III and focal person for job fairs in Davao City told Edge Davao on Tuesday. She added that it’s more than the target job vacancies solicited for Labor Day this year. The region’s target was 5,000. DOLE 11 conducted a job fair at the Gaisano Mall Davao on April 29 and 30, and at SM Davao on May 1.
Vacant jobs in local employment were for skilled workers, call center agents, IT personnel, hotel and restaurant crews, accountants and construction workers. Overseas jobs were for nurses, all kinds of engineers, domestic helpers, construction workers, manicurists, hotel crews, air-con technicians, and elevator boys. Arce said there are more than 1,000 vacant jobs for nurses abroad.
Jobs solicited in the job fair on Labor Day this year were more than last year’s job fairs dubbed “Jobapalooza”. DOLE reported that there were a total of about 5,600 jobs solicited during last year’s Labor Day participated in by 89 local and 41 overseas companies and agencies. For 3,100 local job vacancies, there were 2,401 applicants who registered and 2,283 who were referred. Meanwhile, for 2,500 overseas job vacancies, 1,731 registered and 1,272 were referred. There were 2,975 who registered for both local and overseas, while 3,346 registered in the online Phil-jobnet. DOLE recorded 2,753 job applicants for final interviews or evaluation, 1,742 for local and 1,011 for overseas. There were 1,095 applicants hired on the spot.
Assistant regional director Ofelia Domingo said DOLE had conducted more than 50 job fairs, and was able to generate 60-70,000 jobs in the region from January to December 2009. Most of these jobs, according to her, were in the services sector, both professional and skilled workers.
Domingo said there will be more job fairs for the remainder of the year and these will be sponsored by LGUs, non-government organizations and political organizations. Although there is no exact target of jobs to be generated in 2010, Arce said it is possible to surpass the total jobs generated last year. DOLE had conducted eight job fairs in Davao city since January of this year, she added.
Earn while waiting
Apparently, overseas employment for nurses is declining. Even DOLE 11 had only solicited not more than 2,000 job vacancies for nurses abroad in the job fair last May 1. In fact, over 150,000 licensed nurses in the country today are still unemployed.
While waiting for opportunities abroad and instead of applying for jobs in other service industries outside their profession, unemployed nurses in region 11 can be part of project NARS or join cooperatives for nurses initiated by DOLE.
Temporary employment is provided for unemployed nurses through DOLE’s Project NARS. Licensed nurses were assigned to local government units (LGUs) whose constituents belong below the poverty line. With a monthly stipend of PhP 8,000, these nurses rendered their services for six months. So far, 205 nurses were accommodated in two batches in this program who received their certificates on May 1.
The cooperative is an alternative for nurses to earn while acquiring training and experience in public health care, Kerwin Pagaran said. Pagaran passed the nursing board exam in 2008 and found employment as marketing personnel and review assistant in a nursing review center in the city. Currently, he is the vice chairperson of the Davao City EntrepreNurse Health Care Cooperative which was formed in January this year.
As part of the Labor Day celebration, DOLE issued a check for PhP250,000 to the nurse cooperative to start its clinic located in Buhangin, Davao City.
In this cooperative, Pagaran said, members will be provided with training to qualify for outsourcing, home health care, private nurse duty and nurse companionship. He said their goal is to produce quality nursing personnel and quality nursing services.
He added that they already approached the Philippine Academy of Family Physicians for partnership, pharmaceutical companies and even banana plantations where services of their nurses will be utilized. Also, they are in the process of drafting a manual for practice in terms of occupational health and safety, and environmental hazard with assistance from concerned authorities. He added that they are searching for standards of home health care from foreign countries which they can apply in their practice, and eventually will add value to their experiences for the purpose of overseas employment.
The cooperative, which so far has 75 members, categorize their membership as associates (those who join for investment) and as qualified for deployment. The membership fee is PhP400 and the shared capital is PhP2,400. But, Pagaran said, the member will only pay PhP600 for the shared capital upon registration. The remaining PhP1,800 is payable within 18 months.
“What is good about project EntrepreNurse is this is a business, and everybody should go into business,” he said. Thus, it is a wise alternative for a nurse while waiting for better employment here and abroad. Lorie Ann A. Cascaro
