.8 M high-end jobs expected till 2009

Some 800,000 jobs abroad await Filipino professionals and skilled workers until 2009, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said yesterday.

"The prospects are bright for the next three years because we have a conservative estimate of more than 800,000 high-end jobs. This is over and above what we have already deployed," Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said.

Brion said the high-end jobs would come from the information technology, telecommunications, medical, tourism and construction sectors in countries in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

According to Saudi Arabia-based labor attaché Rustico dela Fuente, they are expecting the demand for Filipino workers, particularly engineers, welders, pipe fitters and surveyors, to increase this year with the construction of four economic cities, each as big as Dubai, in the kingdom.

Dela Fuente added that the construction boom in the western region could generate almost a million jobs and DOLE is targeting 360,000 of these jobs.

"We are targeting 20 to 25 percent of the available market," he said.

Job opportunities are also expected to be bright for accountants, market analysts and economists in the coming years.

In Asia, Japan-based labor attaché Reydeluz Conferido said Japan would also need computer-aided designers, car designers and telecommunication engineers. These are on top of the health workers and the 8,000 to 10,000 marine officers that Japan needs.

The tourism industry in China, Malaysia and Singapore and the natural gas and petrochemical sector in Brunei, on the other hand, are also expected to need workers from the Philippines.

Geneva-based labor attaché Manuel Imson revealed that the United States and European countries account for 20 percent of the 800,000 job openings available until 2009.

DOLE also reported that some 5,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) could land jobs in Canada this year because of the memorandum of understanding forged between a Canadian province and the Philippines.

The milestone accord was signed by Brion and Pat Atkinson, minister of advanced education and employment of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, during Brion’s recent mission to Canada. Atkinson was in the Philippines last year.

Brion said the growing labor market in Canada is propelled by the booming economy in the oil-rich central and western Canadian provinces.

He added that the "hallmark and milestone agreement" is working to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two countries, through common solutions to labor and human resource challenges. It is the first in many years between the two nations.

He said Canada, the world’s second largest country in terms of land area, accounts for an increasing volume of remittances from major OFW host economies.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas records show that total OFW remittances from Canada surpassed $117.061 million in 2005, representing a growth of 73.8 percent from the $67.338-million remittances in 2004.