Capitol Job Fair Gathers 1T Applicants, 5 Get ‘Hots’

Almost 1,000 applicants joined the Overseas Job Fair organized by the Cebu Provincial Public Employment Services Office (Peso) at the Capitol Social Hall on Sunday, Jan. 27.

Julius Chua, the officer-in-charge for Peso’s outplacement program for local and overseas displaced workers, said there were 27 licensed agencies that joined the job fair.

Chua said most of the applicants were men as most of the available jobs are for carpentry, welding, among others, for New Zealand, Australia, and other countries.

He said there were five applicants that were hired-on-the-spot (hots) by one agency that was looking for workers to serve as sales representatives or cashiers.

Other available jobs for women posted during the job fair were factory workers, teachers and hotel-related jobs for Dubai and China.

Chua assured that all the participating agencies are legitimate and have licenses. He said that an agency cannot join a job fair if it does not have a job fair authority issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

The Peso had invited 29 agencies for the job fair but there were two that failed to secure the job fair authority from POEA.

Image source: Cebu Provincial Gov’t

“Duha (agencies) wa kakuha og job fair authority kay ang POEA i-check nila kung angay ba sila moapil sa job fair, mao 27 ra ang apil,” said Chua. “Licensed agency sila. Ang procedure nato sa POEA bisag license agency ka nya magsige kag apil og job fair then pagkatapos dili ka ka-submit sa ilang documents, dili jud kakuha og job fair authority,” he said.

Citing previous overseas job fairs, Chua said fewer applicants were “hots” because the participating agencies still have to get the approval of the employers of a specific country, aside from evaluating the data presented by a job seeker.

For this year, Chua said Peso will be hosting more overseas job fairs.

“Naobserbahan namo last year nga kong local gamay ra. Kung overseas, daghan gyud ang aplikante kay kasagaran gusto na mo abroad,” said Chua.

However, Chua said that while there were only a few “hots” in overseas job fairs, there were applicants that were immediately hired during local job fairs.

Based on the Peso’s records, there were 330 individuals that were hired on the spot during the local job fairs while 22 for the overseas last year.

Aside from the job fairs, Peso has also been organizing special recruitment activities, as well as posting the list of available jobs on their bulletin board and on social media.

Peso announced that it is now accommodating a free orientation for interested applicants for the Special Program for Employment of Students (SPES) for the Summer Job 2019.

The applicant must be 15 to 30 years old, still studying in high school or college/university and the parents’ BIR Tax Exemption or Income Tax Return whose combined income do not exceed P131,484.00.

Chua encouraged the applicants to visit the Peso first for the orientation before securing any documents for the summer job.

For further details, applicants may visit the website of the Cebu Provincial Government at www.cebu.gov.ph.