POEA eyes Australian jobs markets in 2012

Friday, December 30, 2011

THE Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is eyeing job opportunities for nurses and skilled workers in Australia next year.

POEA Administrator Carlos Cao Jr. said Filipinos should take advantage of the shortage of Australian workforce, which might be available to jobless Filipino nurses and skilled workers in the construction and mining sectors.

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“This is now the opportune time to provide viable solutions to the growing number of jobless and under-employed Filipino nurses now already numbering close to 300,000, including the 68,000 who just recently passed the latest nursing board examinations,” Cao said.

A report by Labor Attache Jalilo Dela Torre of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (Polo) revealed that the shortage of nurses in Australia is 40,000 until 2015, while the shortage in the construction industry is projected upward to 750,000 construction positions over the next 20 years.

Likewise, 200 “mega” projects are currently lined up but with no available local workforce to complete them.

“With its mining and construction boom that run short of skilled workers and its healthcare system now with an acute need for registered nurses and other allied professionals, there are tremendous opportunities to widen the gateway for jobs for Filipinos in Australia across all industries and across all states and territories,” Cao added.

Australia is still one of the least explored frontiers for skilled Filipino workers and professionals wanting to work in a developed economy offering decent work and decent pay, the report added.

Cao said Australia may now turn out to be a large alternative market if the political turmoil in the Middle East and the economic downturn in the Eurozone and in the US continue to deteriorate.

Between 2009 and 2011, Australia took in 107,868 skilled migrants, and between 2011 and 2012, a 17 percent increase is planned, with the Federal Government projecting another 2.4 million migrant skilled workers in the next four years.

By 2050, a quarter of Australia’s population of 23 million will be over 65 years old, and by then, the country will need 5.2 million skilled migrants.

Every two minutes and 38 seconds, Australia welcomes a migrant from overseas. It is a multi-cultural society with seven percent Asians and 2.3 percent aboriginal. Also, 40 percent of the Australian population are foreign-born or with parents overseas.

With Australia’s “huge skills crisis”, the number of workers under the “Skilled Migration Scheme” is capped at 180,000 every year, showing that there is still plenty of territories and possibilities to explore,” added the report. (FP/Sunnex)