LABOR and Employment Secretary Marianito Roque yesterday told a House panel that more job opportunities are available for Filipinos in Norway and Qatar.
Appearing before a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight, Roque said that Qatar is giving out 125,000 working visas exclusive to Filipino engineers and information technology (IT) experts.
Norway has opened its doors to Filipino professionals, like civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers, offering salaries from $5,000 to $7,000 per month, Roque added.
According to Roque, this is part of the government’s job generation program targeting at least 10 million jobs in the next four years.
“There are countries like Norway that are open for Filipino jobseekers. Our directive is to continue with bilateral talks with other countries to assure the welfare of our workers. They prefer Filipinos because of our discipline,” Roque said.
To date, Roque said, only 26,000 Filipinos have already filled up engineering and IT positions in Qatar and that 99,000 more jobs await Filipinos in the construction, oil and gas fields.
Roque stressed that the Philippines has started reducing the number of domestic helpers or household workforce and instead is deploying more professionals who are very competitive.
“In Norway, they prefer Filipinos than workers from India and Pakistan because of our discipline. We can speak English and we can easily adopt other’s culture,” the secretary told congressmen.
The House committee on oversight is conducting a hearing to assess whether government agencies are complying with the 10-point agenda of the Arroyo administration from 2004 to 2010.
Meanwhile, Roque said that the DoLE is now studying the job opportunities in the African continent where there are decent jobs, good training and high-paying jobs for Filipino professionals. By: Jester P. Manalastas - Journal online
