'200,000 new jobs for Filipinos in the region'

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said there would be more than 200,000 new jobs for skilled and professional Filipinos in the Middle East and North Africa for this year alone.

This includes 39,128 new opportunities in the UAE.

In an informal chat with reporters after addressing the Employment and Business Opportunities: The Middle East Forum, held at the Renaissance Hotel in Deira, Arroyo said the new job opportunities were created after Philippine labour officials and representatives of companies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, as well as managers of agencies involved in the recruitment and hiring of Filipino workers signed a manifesto of commitment to create new jobs amid the global economic crisis.

President Arroyo and Philippine Labour Secretary Marianito Roque were present during the formalisation of the commitment, wherein Atty Virginia Calvez, Philippine Labour Attaché to Dubai and the northern emirates and Muriel Joseph, Chief People Officer of Saudi Oger signed the manifesto.

Calvez represented the nine Filipino labour attaches posted in the Middle East and North African regions, while Joseph signed on behalf of the companies and employers represented in the Employment Forum.

Meanwhile, even as the global recession bites, opportunities for skilled and professionals continue to be created.

While a total of 1,585 Filipinos lost their jobs in Dubai and the northern emirates as of March this year, according to the Philippine Overseas Labour Office in Dubai, a statement from President Arroyo's press staff said that 39,128 new jobs are expected to open up for Filipinos in the UAE this year.

President Arroyo added that the expected 200,000 job opportunities did not include new opportunities in Qatar that Manila had earlier announced.

“The job orders for professionals, administrative personnel, clerical workers, sales personnel, service workers in the hotel, restaurant, tourism and hospitality sectors, agricultural workers and production process workers expected to be filled-up are spread [throughout the region],'' a statement from the President's press staff said.

Employment forum

Dr Hussain Al Mahdi, Chairman of the Federation of Gulf Cooperating Council Chamber of Commerce Committee on Human Resources and Labour Market, delivered a labour market outlook presentation wherein he discussed how the Philippines can grab a huge share of the expected job opportunities in the region which are expected to be filled up within the year.

Some of the companies that took part in the summit, included Daewoo Engineering and Construction, Kerzner International Management (managers of Atlantis Hotel), Bechtel Company, Saudi Oger and Consolidated Contractors, among others.

Philippine-based manpower agencies were represented by the Association for Professionalism of Overseas Employment, the Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc., and the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters.

Sudden schedule shift

President Arroyo and her party arrived in Dubai on Sunday midnight after cutting short her official trip in Thailand where anti-government protesters disrupted The Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) summit in the resort town of Pattaya on Saturday.

Cerge Remonde, the President's press secretary, said Arroyo as well as the other Asean heads of state had to be evacuated from the hotel where the summit was being held after supporters of former Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra broke into the security cordon, forcing organisers to call off the event.

From Thailand, Arroyo took a five-hour flight to Dubai, abruptly moving her schedule ahead. “The President was originally scheduled to fly here on Monday evening and all these events were supposed to be held on Tuesday,'' a close aide of the President told XPRESS.

Arroyo will be meeting with Filipino community leaders later in the afternoon after attending an Easter Sunday service to be held at Fairmont Hotel Dubai.

She will hold a news conference on Tuesday morning before visiting the nation's capital to call on President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in the afternoon.

The Philippine president and her party are set to leave for Manila on early Tuesday morning to enable her to catch up with the burial of Press Undersecretary Jose Capadocia, one of her close aides who was killed in a helicopter crash last week in northern Philippines.