PIA Press Release
Thursday, January 12, 2012 Pangasinan employment rate rises to 92.1% in 2011LINGAYEN, Pangasinan, Jan. 12 -- The labor force survey of the Provincial Employment Services Office (PESO) revealed that the employment rate in Pangasinan rose to 92.1 percent in 2011 from 91.4 percent in 2010. Accordingly, unemployment rate dropped to 7.9 percent in the latter part of last year as compared to 8.6 percent during the same period in 2010. PESO Chief Alex Ferrer said the provincial government is bent on increasing employment opportunities for jobseekers. The latest of which are jobs from the Almarai Company, the largest integrated dairy foods company in the Middle East. Almarai is the leading producer of dairy products, cheese, culinary, yoghurt, desserts, bakery product and chicken in Saudi Arabia. It is comparable to the status of giant corporations in the Philippines like San Miguel or Nestle, he said. Ferrer said this is the first time that the company will hire employees from Pangasinan alone. In the past, the agency recruited only from Visayas and Mindanao. “We convinced the company to scout for employees here and if they get impressed, we hope that they become one of our regular recruiters,” he said. No placement fee or processing fee will be collected from applicants and the medical expenses are reimbursable. The PESO, as part of this, conducts free skills enhancement trainings on Dairy Farming, Poultry Farming, Farm Tractor Operation and Basic English Conversation in the municipalities of Sison, Laoac, Alcala and Urbiztondo in partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. “We initiated these trainings for pre-screened applicants of Almarai to give them higher chances of getting hired. The jobseekers can be more technically skilled and be more confident in conversing in English during the interview,” Ferrer stressed. (ANL/VHS-PIA-Pangasinan with reports from PIO) | 
