Published May 1, 2022 8:15pm

Over 100,000 jobs vacancies in the Philippines and overseas were opened to jobseekers on Sunday, May 1, in celebration of the Labor Day.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the job vacancies were offered to jobseekers in various job fairs across the country on Sunday, in partnership with some 900 employers.

Majority of the vacancies were in manufacturing, business process outsourcing, and the retail and sales industries.

Some 73,671 jobs were for production or machine operators, customer service representatives, collection specialists, retail or sales agents or promodisers, and sewers.

There were also some 28,755 jobs made available in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Major vacancies abroad were for nurses and nurse aids, carpenters, foremen, welders, food servers, household service workers, and auditors.

For its part, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said it is pushing for more investments into the country, in a bid to boost employment.

“Kami po ay nagtutulak ng mas maraming investment, maraming export, para ito ho talaga, creating jobs,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said in the report.

[We are pushing for more investments, more exports, to create jobs.]

Latest data available from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) indicate that there were 3.13 million unemployed Filipinos in February, translating to an unemployment rate of 6.14%.

The latest reading shows an increase from the 2.93 million jobless Filipinos registered in the previous month, reflecting the same unemployment rate of 6.4%, the lowest since the 17.6% during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in April. — BM, GMA News