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Job fair brings employment opportunities closer to home

By Leilanie Adriano

November 12, 2018, 4:49 pm

<p><strong>JOB FAIR.</strong> Ilocos Norte's Task Force Trabaho program continues to create more jobs for Ilocanos.<em> (Photo courtesy of Ilocos Norte)</em></p>

JOB FAIR. Ilocos Norte's Task Force Trabaho program continues to create more jobs for Ilocanos. (Photo courtesy of Ilocos Norte)

SAN NICOLAS, Ilocos Norte -- Jobseekers from Ilocos Norte and nearby provinces are expected to gather at the Robinsons Mall activity area in this town on Monday for a chance to land a job.

Participated by around 50 local companies, including some government line agencies and recruitment agencies for overseas employment, the year-end job fair has become an annual activity that the provincial government of Ilocos Norte, through its Public Employment and Service Office (PESO), has initiated to reduce unemployment rate in the province.

Result from the latest Labor Force Survey showed Ilocos Norte’s unemployment rate is down to 4.2 percent, making the province the least poor among other provinces in Region 1 – Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union and Pangasinan.

Ann Marie Lisette Bitancor-Atuan, PESO head, said Monday they are expecting hundreds of applicants trooping to the mall with the lucky ones getting hired on the spot.

Last September, at least 326 Ilocanos were hired on-the-spot out of the more than 500 applicants held in the same venue, also under the provincial government’s Task Force Trabaho program.

Some of the offered positions include store supervisors, sales consultant, finance head, call center agents, marketing officers, credit investigators, hotel workers, bakery workers, warehouse personnel, construction workers, and pharmacists.

There are also jobs which do not require work experience and high educational attainment.

Over the past six years, Atuan said the program continues to attract employers and jobseekers to participate in the program.

Aside from the conduct of job fairs in various parts of the province, Ilocos Norte’s online jobs portal, a dedicated web site for jobseekers and employers, has been institutionalized to make job searching and employment within the province easier.

For a 24-year-old Arnel Jose of San Nicolas town, he said life in the province is much easier now and he hopes to get employed in one of the fastest growing business process outsourcing company in his hometown. (PNA)

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