25,000 vacancies offered at job fairs

CEBU, Philippines - Around 25,000 job vacancies here and abroad will be offered to fresh graduates and unemployed individuals on May 1 to mark the celebration of Labor Day.

DOLE Regional Director Ma. Gloria Tango said they are making sure that at least 15 percent of the total applicants registered are hired on the spot during the job fair. 

 Tango said that 18,492 vacancies abroad from 23 recruitment agencies are being offered while 3,000 local vacancies from 46 establishments are being offered.

The overseas job fair will be held at the Abellana National School while the local job fair will be held at the Cebu International Convention Center.

In Negros, a job fair will also be held for   more than 2,000 vacancies.

Based on the DOLE-7 data, there are 233,000 unemployed or a 7.5 percent rate while there are 2.891 million are employed in the region as of January 2012.

According to Tango, the job fair is a way to prevent jobs and skills mismatch.

To address the mismatch, she said, DOLE has already intensified its campaign on pre-registration in order to give job seekers a higher chance of finding the right job suited to their qualifications.

The DOLE has already announced its second quarter job fair schedules to enable applicants — the “educated unemployed,” new college graduates, holders of certificates of technical–vocational courses, jobless out-of-school youth, and even those who are planning to switch jobs — to prepare for the job fairs.

Aside from May 1, the DOLE is set to conduct another job fair on June 12, Independence Day.

Simultaneous job fairs will also be conducted in 16 regions on these dates.

Tango said that more than 200 job fairs will be conducted in the second quarter by the Public Employment Service Offices [PESOs] in cooperation with private sector, local government units, and civic organizations.

For the DOLE job fairs, no participation fees are collected from participating agencies or employers. – (FREEMAN)