DOLE to offer job opportunities for displaced Hanjin workers

MANILA, Philippines — Displaced workers of shipbuilding company Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Corp. Philippines will get job opportunities from the government through its “Build, Build, Build” program, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said on Tuesday.

“We will assist them with re-employment to other related jobs such us in construction under the Build Build Build program of the President. The workers are highly skilled and they are relatively young and both in demand not only here in our country but abroad,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a press conference.

Bello revealed that DOLE will coordinate with the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Transportation and Department of Public Works and Highways for the possible employment of the displaced Hanjin workers.

However, DOLE will first conduct profiling of the Hanjin workers to determine their preference of assistance, Bello said.

“We need to profile the workers to know their preference of assistance whether employment livelihood or training for other skills to match them with available job opportunities better,” he said.

Bello added that displaced Hanjin workers would receive their separation pay as reported to them by Subic Shipbuilder Corporation, Hanjin’s general contractor.

“Subic Shipbuilder Corporation, Hanjin’s general contractor in shipbuilding, has given us assurance that their workers will get separation pay equivalent to one month for every year of service,” he said.

Thousands of Hanjin employees will be displaced after the shipbuilding company that operates at the Subic shipyard earlier filed for corporate rehabilitation at the Olongapo City Regional Trial Court to protect it from its creditors.

Hanjin owed $400 million in outstanding loans from the country’s banks and another $900 million borrowed from lenders in South Korea.  /muf

READ: Workers bear brunt of Hanjin’s woes