Iloilo City eyes to be Job hub of VisMin

By: Emme Rose Santiagudo

THE Iloilo City government is eyeing to make the city the center of employment in Visayas and Mindanao.

This was the message of Mayor Jose Espinosa III during the Labor Day job fair of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Western Visayas at Robinsons Jaro mall on Wednesday.

According to Espinosa, he would like open Iloilo City as an investment area to provide more opportunities for the local jobseekers and those who are from the nearby provinces.

“Ang aton damgo ang aton kabataan indi na magwa sa siyudad kag pati ang taga iban nga siyudad, diri na lang ma-employ,” he said.

Espinosa said the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the metro will be needing additional 5,000 employees.

The BPO sector in the city currently employs 26,000 individuals, according to Iloilo Federation for Information Technology (IFIT) Chairman Jessraf Palmares.

Various business establishments also signified their plans of increasing their seating capacity and expanding their operations in the city, Espinosa added.

“Ang aton mga establishments naga-communicate gd sa aton nga they want to increase the seating capacity and ila operations diri sa siyudad,” he said.

To achieve the goal of becoming the employment hub of the region, Espinosa said they have been trying their best, together with the private sectors, to bring in more foreign investors in the city.

Espinosa recalled their trade missions in the United States and China to attract more foreign investors.

“Ginahimo ta gid ang tanan na maganyat investors sa aton siyudad. As you can see, more investments are coming in,” he said.

Around 3,000 applicants were interviewed during the Labor Day job fair of DOLE-6 on Wednesday.

DOLE-6 Labor Relations Focal Person Niezel Anne Sabrido said 65 applicants were hired-on-the-spot (HOTS), mostly for local employment.

The job fair initiated by DOLE-6 was participated by 63 local companies and 10 overseas recruitment agencies, offering about 39,000 vacancies.