DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 7 June) – Around 4,300 vacancies will be available to job seekers at the 2024 Kalayaan Job Fair here on June 12, an official of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)-Davao said.
Lawyer Jason Balais, DOLE-Davao assistant regional director, said there are 44 participating local and overseas companies during the one-day job fair on the 126th Philippine Independence Day celebration, at the Gaisano Mall of Davao.
Balais said the agency hopes to connect job seekers with employers to address the unemployment in the region.
He encouraged job seekers to pre-register through the DOLE-Davao Online Job Fair portal, which is available until June 12, but added that walk-in applicants would still be accommodated on the day of the job fair.
He said top employers in the region are engaged in the wholesale and retail trade industries, administrative and support service activities, financial and insurance activities, and manufacturing.
He said the number of unemployed workers in the region based on the Labor Force Survey results as of April was 77,000, representing 3.3 percent of the region’s labor force who are actively seeking employment.
He said there are a number of investments coming to the region and that the agency hopes this will create more jobs to address unemployment.
Balais added that fresh graduates are also welcome to participate in the upcoming job fair.
“We encourage them if they are now ready to join the world of work maybe, if they have relaxed after graduation and are now seeking for employment, certainly, DOLE will be happy to assist them under our mandate for employment facilitation,” he said
He said “job mismatch” is one of the reasons why workers do not get employed since graduates may not possess the kind of skill set demanded by the prospective employers.
He said graduates are encouraged to “acquire skills outside of their respective professional degrees” to meet the requirements of the establishments.
“We always know the reasons why some of them are not hired. This is a question of mismatch of the skills that they possess and the requirements of prospective employers,” he said. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)
