Over 30k job seekers join Labor Day fair; 1,658 hired on spot

Job seekers show up at a job fair held at the Manila City Hall on Labor Day, May 1, 2017. (PHOTO BY RICHARD REYES / INQUIRER)

MANILA — More than 30,000 Filipinos looking for jobs flocked to the 54 Labor Day job fairs organized by the Department of Labor and Employment, which offered more than 200,000 job vacancies.

Data from the DOLE showed that 34,605 job seekers registered for the job fairs, of which 17,752 were women while the rest were men.

Fifty-one percent or 17,783 of the total number of job applicants were deemed qualified.

However, only 1,658 were hired on the spot while 9,896 were near-hire applicants or those who will still have to be called back by the company.

This means that of the 17,783 qualified job applicants, only nine percent or 1,658 were hired on the spot by their employers.

Most of the job applicants or 16,764 were looking for employment in the Philippines, while 4,331 were targetting overseas employment.

Among the regions, Central Luzon had the highest number of job applicants at 5,683, followed by Metro Manila with 4,505 registered job applicants.  SFM