Go to Canada, job seekers told

Even as the employment rate in Canada takes a nose dive, Filipinos are being urged by their government to look to the Great White North for employment opportunities.

Filipino government officials are spreading the word that there are many opportunities in Canada because there are some jobs that the locals just don’t want to do.

For instance, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) of the Davao Region in The Philippines is looking for 10,000 butchers for meat processing plants and restaurants in Canada and Australia.

Elmer K. Talavera, TESDA regional director, was quoted in local media as saying skilled butchers are in demand for turning cattle and sheep into meat cuts for domestic and export markets.

He went on to say that nationals of countries such as Australia and Canada do not like working in slaughterhouses or as meat cutters in restaurants.

"That’s why the meat industries in these countries are sending out feelers to neighboring countries in Asia to fill up the thousands of job openings for butchers there," he said.

TESDA is offering butcher course wherein applicants will undergo six weeks of training.

After the extensive training, the agency will test the applicant on the knowledge and skills he acquired during the 160-hour program.

"This is part of the government’s stimulus package to help the country survive the global economic crisis," Talavera said.

He said there is heavy demand for workers in butcher shops, food retailing, and the butchery departments of supermarkets and grocery stores. This is due to a decline in the number of local apprentices going into these trades between 2001 and 2006.

Despite a recession-hit job market, The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has said that there are still 400,000 jobs available for Filipinos abroad.

"Roughly we still have a balance of 400,000 or so job orders worldwide, these are job orders or requests from employers abroad for workers from The Philippines," POEA Administrator Jennifer Manalili said, according to Philippine news reports.

She cited reports from Philippine Labour offices abroad, embassies, and related agencies indicating that some markets are still in demand of a lot of workers. 

"[There are] sectors affected, that’s correct, but there are also other sectors that are opening up, opening their doors to migrant workers, also to Filipinos," she said.

She said that especially for countries with aging populations, health care services would always be "a constant need."

"For the health care services, we have a request from Canada, from Australia . . . there are sectors that close down but there are still sectors that remain to be buoyant in the overseas sector," she said.

The call to Filipinos to look for work overseas comes as President Gloria Arroyo intensifies efforts to place more workers overseas.

The Philippines is already one of the world’s leading sources for skilled and unskilled workers with up to nine million people, about 10 pe rcent of the population, living and working in 140 countries abroad. In the first 11 months of last year these workers sent home US$15 billion, contributing around 10 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product and helping to keep growth for the year at a respectable 4.6 per cent.

While remittances have managed to shield The Philippines from the full impact of the financial crisis, the small manufacturing and garment sectors – The Philippines’ main export earners – are bleeding out as factories close and thousands lose their jobs.

The Labour Department says about 15,000 workers have been laid off over the past two months while 19,000 others had their work week cut to four days or less.

In its worst-case scenario, the government fears that as many as 800,000 could lose their jobs this year.

Labour Secretary Marianito Roque said there is unmet demand for 389,000 jobs abroad, including more than 100,000 in Qatar and 12,000 in Kuwait.

He expects the number of Filipinos working abroad will increase this year, as will their remittances back home, citing signs that the deployment of such workers went up in late-2008 despite the onset of the crisis.

Even amidst the financial turmoil, the central bank has projected a six per cent increase in remittances from overseas workers this year. This would be a slowdown from the estimated 15 per cent increase in 2008.

Private recruiters of Filipinos for overseas work say there is huge demand – but that only a few Filipinos may qualify. Manny Geslani, a consultant to recruitment agencies, said Philippine recruiters have only been able to fill about 40 per cent of their job orders.

In The Philippines, some 27 million people live on a dollar a day or less and one in three adults are unemployed or underemployed.