Hotels abroad exploiting OJT students – Drilon

SEN. Franklin Drilon asked the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Tuesday to look into the “exploitative” practices of some countries in the Southeast Asia concerning on-the-job trainings (OJTs). “We have discovered that in the hotel industry abroad, particularly in Southeast Asia, there are a number of OJTs getting paid half of the normal salary,” he said after the hearing of the budget of the DOLE and its attached agencies.

He said these students are actually rendering service and are no longer trainees. He believed that the hotels abroad are using the OJT program to go around minimum wage.

Drilon, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, said that these students were recruited to work abroad using student visas so they did not pass through Labor department. He noted that the recruitment of students on OJTs was most rampant in Singapore.

“They do work. They have recruiters. There are agents. But they are not given adequate protection. If something happens to them who will protect them?” he asked.

Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) head Carmelita Dimzon said that OWWA could not extend any assistance to the students on OJT abroad because they are not registered as members.

Drilon said the government must come up with a regulation to prevent the exploitation of students by unscrupulous recruiters.

“We would caution the schools engaged in this kind of practice because if something happens to these trainees abroad, the schools can be made to answer, especially if it is shown that they were negligent in allowing recruiters to recruit the students,” he said.

At the same budget hearing, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said that the creation of 43,000 jobs emanating from the US visit of President Benigno
Aquino 3rd would help the administrations’ goal to generate jobs and address poverty.

The 43,000 jobs would be created over three years because companies still have to come in and set up their own businesses.

She said that among the skills that would be most in demand in the next three years are call center agents, customer service assistants, technical support staff, forklift operators, accounting clerks, mechanical engineers, sales clerks, drivers, cashiers and production workers.

Oversupply of nurses

Baldoz also lamented the “oversupply” of nurses. She said that schools and universities continue to produce nursing graduates even if the department has been signals that the demand for nurses has been declining, whether in the Philippines or abroad.

“It will not be surprising to have our nurses land in other jobs, not doing the competencies from which they get their license,” she said.

Drilon said job mapping by the department would provide parents and students the information on what jobs are needed by the economy for the next 10 years.

“In many developed countries, job mapping is done regularly. They can predict what the economy will be for the next five to 10 years. In our case, we have not done that in a regular manner,” he noted.

Baldoz agreed to review this every two years. She also said that Labor department is preparing a national skills registry and the competencies for each skill, in coordination with the Department of Education, the Commission on Higher Education and the Technical Education and Skills Development Administration. –EFREN L. DANAO SENIOR REPORTER, Manila Times