In Demand Jobs Abroad for Filipinos

Aside from health workers (nurses, x-ray technicians, med tech, etc.), here are the other in-demand jobs abroad for Filipinos:

Jobs in the US (United States):
- Educators (SPED, IT professors, Instructors, Workshop facilitators, Librarian)

SPED teachers are still in demand. Virginia and Maryland have the highest demands for teachers. You can visit these sites for more details: http://www.facesinc.org/ and http://www.vifprogram.com/

Jobs in Australia:
If you visit http://www.seek.com.au/ there are a lot of vacancies for:
- IT workers
- Accounting and Sales jobs
- Administration (office)
- Engineering jobs
- Construction workers
- Skilled workers (Butchers, Agricultural Workers, Welders, etc.)

You can also sign up and apply on that site (http://www.seek.com.au/). Australia is experiencing a labor shortage so any applications from abroad is welcome. I know in most of the job posts there has a note that says: "Only people with the right to work in Australia may apply for this position." but you may disregard that and try your luck and still apply. ;) If you have the necessary work experience and you are really qualified, the employers will definitely contact you regardless of your location. Good luck!

Jobs in Canada:
- Skilled workers (Construction workers, Electricians, etc.)
- Nursing homes and Hospitals (Caregiver, Nurses, Nannies)
- Hotels (Room attendant, Receptionist, etc.)
- Fast Food Chain (Cashier, Food and Beverage server, Waiter)

You may go to http://www.jobbank.gc.ca/ and check out the vacancies there. Canada is a vast country, it is almost thirty times as large as the Philippines, but its population is only about 33 million. Canada's economy is booming, but because of its very few population, it is experiencing a labor crunch. They really need more people in their work force so Filipinos who will apply for jobs in Canada will most likely be considered. Just make sure you have the necessary work experience.

For more job opportunities, you can also go to the POEA office at EDSA corner. Ortigas Avenue, Mandaluyong City. You can also call the POEA hotline: 722-1144; 722-1155; 722-1187, or email your inquiries at: info@poea.gov.ph or poeainfocenter@yahoo.com .

Call Center in the Philippines : A Bleak Future?

In the past few years, the business process outsourcing/call center industry in the Philippines has experienced a significant boom. A lot of companies worldwide established their call centers here because of the lower labor costs/overhead and the abundant number of English speaking workers. Before, Filipinos searching for jobs had to wait for years to get employed and wait even some more to get a raise. But because of the huge demand for call center representatives, job hunters nowadays have an easier time landing good paying jobs at call centers. (last I heard starting salaries range from P 13,000-20,000, that’s for those who have no CSR experience yet, the offer is greater for those who are experienced already)

However, a couple of days ago NBC Nightly News (now airing on Crime Suspense Channel/RPN 9) reported that many of the US companies are bringing the offshore jobs back to the US, mainly due to the increasing number of frustrated and irate customers. Many of them complain about the inadequacy of the call center representatives' technical skills and their ineptness in English.

Here are some of the horror stories at call centers I found on Youtube, most of them are from India according to the uploaders of the videos, but hey we never know ;) :

To avoid customer backlash, a growing number of US companies (eg. Jet Blue, AAA, etc.) are bringing the jobs back to the US and are now shifting to US home-based call center agents. Like an offshore call center, home-based contact centers are cheap. However, it is more advantageous for the US companies to run home-based contact centers because they can easily oversee the operations because the workers are from the US, and on top of that they can be assured that customer misunderstandings/disagreements would be kept to a minimum because the agents are native English speakers. According to NBC Nightly News report, there are already about 150,000 home-based agents in the US and their numbers are steadily growing. Experts think that this trend will continue and the numbers of US home-based agents will continue to grow in the coming years.

I think that this move plus the imminent US recession will hamper the growth of the business process outsourcing industry, specifically the call center industry, in the Philippines. I'm not belittling our agents and the capabilities of our workers, but if we want to stay competitive we should start to address this problem. The BPO/call centers here should be more stringent in screening the job applicants. They should provide a lot of trainings and seminars to their employees that would equip them with more skills and hone their English speaking skills. Filipinos shouldn't rest on their laurels just because they’re working in a fast-growing, high-paying industry. As we all know, the business climate is dynamic, everything changes fast, what could be the hottest industry today would be gone tomorrow.