By Noel Barcelona
Posted on Dec. 30, 2009 at 7:58am
http://www.dateline.ph/?p=3615
Antipolo, Rizal, Philippines—With more speculative jobs abroad and low job opportunities at home, Migrante Middle East (ME) tells Labor Secretary Marianito D. Roque Jr. not to give jobless and those looking for a job false hopes.
The statement came after the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) announced recently that there are 10 million jobs available for Juan and Maria de la Cruz abroad this 2010.
Migrante-ME regional coordinator John Leonard F. Monterona said the 300,000 job offerings in Australia are still intangible as bilateral agreement between the Philippine and Australian governments is still unsigned.
“Mr. Roque is counting the chicks though the eggs are still yet to be hatched,” Monterona said in a statement.
He also explained that those jobs are still not available this coming year, but the Filipinos who want to work in the former British colony must wait for three to five years, quoting the very statement of Roque.
The migrant leader blamed the Labor Department’s “preemptive” job statements as the cause for the mushrooming of fly-by-night recruitment and job placement agencies.
In addition to elusive job offerings, Migrante-ME also finds the AUS$4,000 (P165,759.02, based on the prevailing exchange rate last 29 December 2009) monthly salary and placement fee-less hiring in Australia, dubious.
“These careless statement of none other than the labor chief itself only proves that Dole is being run by officials who have no knowledge about the actual feel and dynamism of the labor market. Besides these, let me remind our labor officials that the real purpose of foreign companies for hiring foreigners to work for their companies is to exploit their cheap labor,” he said.
The migrant leader, meanwhile, challenges the presidential aspirants to create a concrete and doable platform for the Filipino people, and that is to create good paying jobs at home.
“We want jobs at home and please, don’t depend too much on export labor,” he added.
