New Jobs Await OFWs in Ebola-Hit Countries

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has announced a list of new job opportunities for the 2,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who will be affected by the government‘s planned mass repatriation of OFWs in Ebola-hit countries in West Africa.

In an interview, Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said based from the profiling conducted by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), almost all of the affected OFWs from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are engineers or other professionals working in the construction industry.

She said she has already ordered the POEA to identify the alternative destination countries for these OFWs.

The list includes employment opportunities in other nearby African countries like Angola, South Africa, and Equatorial Guinea.

It also includes job orders from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Algeria, Japan, and New Zealand.

Baldoz said there are also local job vacancies for the affected OFWs. But she said they are more likely to consider foreign job offers, which usually provide a higher pay.

She said they are not expecting any mass displacement from the possible repatriation since the affected OFWs are highly-skilled.

“They are not affected by constraints in the (labor) market since they are in-demand not only abroad but also in the country,” Baldoz said.

(Source: Manila Bulletin)