Manpower firm partners with academe

The rising demand for skilled technical workers abroad, including a large requirement of seafarers, prompted Manpower Resources of Asia (MRA) to link up with the academe to effectively supply manpower needs for its global clients.

MRA, with its sister company Sealanes Marine Services Inc. inked a partnership agreement with Salazar Institute of Technology (SIT) to operate MRA and Sealanes Marine Services operations in Cebu starting in the next few weeks.

"Because of the huge worldwide demand for manpower resources, we are exerting extra efforts to find the right people. It's not anymore enough to publish our vacancies, but now we have to get closer to where the market is," said MRA chief executive officer (CEO) Christopher Dino Dumatol in a press conference.

If in the past, the demand for overseas employment especially for Filipinos were merely in the rank-and-file level, now Filipinos are in-demand in high position and high paying jobs.

MRA is specializing into recruiting technical manpower for offshore, land based, as well as sea based jobs. It is a non-charging manpower agency. Which means, that applicants are not asked to pay anything. MRA is paid by its employer abroad to supply needed manpower.

He said the trend now for manpower agencies, and human resource solutions companies, are to work closely with the colleges and universities to directly get the needed manpower demand the overseas clients need.

MRA, which has been in the business for decades already, has at least five major clients in the world. These include; one of the largest international dredging companies, construction firms, marine contractor, among others.

The demand for technical workers, welders, crane operators, engineers, among others is growing, and that a lot of applicants do not qualify with the employers' specification, especially for a higher positions such as supervisor, and managerial.

According to Dumatol, the problem now is, there are a lot of graduates whose courses, and trainings in school do not meet the demands of the employers, or the industry standard.

"Now, we are convincing our clients (overseas employers) to work with the schools, in order to provide specific training skills to the students, and directly hire them immediately after they graduate," said Dumatol.

In the sea-based jobs, he said there is a huge demand for officers on board.

Because of this problem, SIT president Edwin Salazar on his part, said with his partnership with MRA, and its sister firm Sealanes Marine Services Inc., SIT will soon be introducing crash-courses for the needed skills abroad, in sea-based, land-based, and offshore job requirements.

"There are a lot of overseas job opportunities for Filipinos, as global employers have recognized the good working attitude of Filipinos, and their ability adjust in different cultures," Dumatol said.

MRA's partnership with SIT in its first expansion outside of Manila. Dumatol said the company has to adopt with the changing trend of going after the applicants, not the other way around, because of dire manpower need for its overseas clients.