PEZA announces 100k job openings

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) yesterday announced some 100,000 job openings in its various ecozones across the country.

PEZA Director General Charito B. Plaza said the Job Expo is part of the five sub-programs of its Development Outreach for Labor, Livelihood and Advancement of Resources (DOLLAR) program to be launched on Monday with Senator Bong Go.

Plaza explained the DOLLAR Program is in support of President Duterte and Senator Bong Go’s “Balik Probinsya” program, which aims to accelerate progress and development in the rural areas.

According to Plaza, the 100,000 job openings will be made available in its online and physical job fairs in its four public ecozones in Cavite, Cebu, Baguio, Bataan and in Mindanao and Manila on Monday. She expressed hope that may some of the 62,000 repatriated OFWs can land in these new positions.

“As of last night, we already have 90,000 job openings so I hope we can reach 100,000 during the opening and launch on Monday,” she said. There is no breakdown as to what kind of jobs are these, but the ITBPM industry accounts for 1 million of the 1.6 million overall employees of PEZA enterprises.

Another program of DOLLAR is the “Innovation and

Livelihood Expo” where local suppliers and farmers are encouraged to participate to be able to supply to ecozone locators and fill-up the supply gap.

PEZA will also hold “Online Skills Training” for locator companies from ITbusiness process management, manufacturing and processing, and ecozone developers to be able to have a ready pool of manpower with the right skills required of PEZA operations.

In addition, PEZA will conduct an “Import-Export Expo” where companies display the products they import and the products they export to encourage local entrepreneurs to produce these items to supply to them instead of importing.

The last DOLLAR subprogram is an aggressive investment promotion for investors for the construction of logistics and transportation hubs, power and telecommunication facilities, and food terminals in every region, under the public private partnership concept.

Plaza said they will be holding virtual investment forum with industry partners and foreign chambers starting with Qatar on July 9 to encourage firms to locate in the country. Other webinars will be held for the US, China, Middle East and EU.

PEZA is even looking for investors in dormitories for ecozone workers to ensure that companies can operate 24x7. They are also looking for providers of shuttle services for workers.