Hundreds of thousands of positions still need to be filled by Filipino workers overseas, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said Monday.

“We don’t have that much number of people coming home from overseas without jobs, and the easiest way that I can say this is, we still have those jobs overseas and the overseas jobs still keep on increasing,” DOLE Secretary Marianito Roque told a Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) forum.

Citing Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) reports, Roque there are about 400,000 unfilled positions for this year alone.

Roque said the challenge is now on matching the capabilities and skills of workers for the kinds of vacancies open to them.

“That’s the challenge before us. We have to admit we're running a bit short right now as far as craftsmen are concerned,” he said.

In response to this, the government, through the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), is working on its Technical Vocation Training Program “to be able to cope with the demand not only overseas but for the Philippines as well.”

“And if we can do this, I think we're going to have a very good conversion process between supply and demand,” he said.

Roque also said it has not been fully successful in extending assistance to overseas Filipino workers who have been displaced by the global economic crisis.

“One thing sure, we cannot hit the 100 percent batting average as far as success in helping all of these workers who've lost their jobs overseas,” Roque said.

Taiwan case

Roque particularly referred to OFWs who have lost their jobs in Taiwan and returned home to the Philippines.

He explained that many OFWs who have been indebted before they left for overseas employment expect immediate assistance from the government.

“Of course, they are expecting immediate relief from the government to get them out of their indebtedness. It is something that we cannot do instantly because there are certain legal processes that we have to subscribe to,” he said.
 
He described these legal processes as the recovery of the OFWs placement fees and the payment for their back wages.

“The recovery of their placement fee goes through a hearing process,” he said. It takes about three months before a decision is reached.

According to Roque, the DOLE is trying to shorten the legal process “to about two months” by way of conciliation and mediation.

“For the 4,500 who came home from Taiwan, we have settled about 1,400 of them as far as recovery of money is concerned, and we have provided employment to more than 800 overseas,” he said.

Furthermore, Roque said that some of the displaced OFWs have been given job offers to go back to Taiwan.

Once they return to Taiwan, the labor chief assured that they would be offered no less than the minimum wage prevailing in Taiwan.

“Taiwan is distinct because it's one market where we've lost a lot of workers,” he said.

Different in Middle East

However, it is not the same for other countries. He stressed that in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is still absorbing more workers.
 
“As a matter of fact, we have not even provided their requirements for Muslim nurses because they gave us a vacancy last year of about 2,000 and we only filled about 600 of them,” he said.

He added: “And there is still a continuing demand for the health care in Saudi Arabia because they are building so many hospitals. I believe there are more than 200 community hospitals in Saudi Arabia that have to be staffed with nurses.”

Likewise, Kuwait still needs nurses because it is also increasing their health care facilities.

“The economic crisis and its effect on employment and unemployment is always a big challenge for us, because we in the Department of Labor and Employment have been continuously trying to do our job of facilitating employment of our unemployed, the new entrants to the labor force, and of course, pushing the decent work program of the International Labor Organization,” he said.

Emergency employment

Since October last year, the number of local and overseas Filipino workers who have lost their jobs is now around 39,000. The government has put in place emergency measures to help workers affected by the crisis.

He said the government has allotted P7 billion intended for its “emergency employment” that would create 180,000 jobs for the next six to nine months.

“It's a response to the emergency right now. I hope if business picks up, it will naturally create permanent employment, and government itself is also filling up its vacant positions that are not affected by the rationalization plan," Roque said.

“We are just trying to make it easy for people to get their jobs, and at the same time protecting them while they are employed,” he said.