National launching of GMA Jobs Center set on Labor Day

Labor and Employment Secretary Marianito D. Roque said that the Philippines takes a vital step in ensuring local and employment opportunities for its people well into the future through the national launching of the web-based GMA (Greater Modular Access) Jobs Center during the nationwide celebration of Labor Day today (May 1, 2008).

Roque said that ultimately, "we will deploy and establish a total of 100 GMA Job Centers or kiosks in key areas nationwide like malls, department stores, city halls, and other public places in our major cities and key locations characterized by heavy human traffic, in order to increase the access to job vacancies and relevant jobs information."

The Labor Chief emphasized that the GMA Jobs Center is the country's first unified and synchronized, state-of-the-art system, incorporating the DOLE's time-tested Phil-Jobnet job search facility, with a better capacity to reach out to a much greater client base with free, relevant jobs and skills information.

Roque said that a total of 10 GMA Job Center kiosks will be deployed for the first time at the Labor Day Jobs and Livelihood Fair. The fair will offer more than 30,000 local and overseas job opportunities to job seekers.

"The operationalization of the GMA Jobs Center will be made simultaneously with a nationwide jobs and livelihood fair, also on Labor Day, which will make available many thousands of opportunities of all types to job seekers in 16 regions nationwide under the aegis of the DOLE regional offices," Roque said.

He added that on Labor Day, the national launching of the GMA Jobs Center kiosks will also be hosted in selected Robinsons Malls as follows: Starmills (San Fernando, Pampanga); Galeria (Ortigas) and Forum (Pioneer, Mandaluyong); Lipa City, Batangas, and Dasmarinas, Cavite; Iloilo City and Bacolod City, following the soft launching of the first kiosk earlier at the Robinson's Mall in Malate, Manila.

"Indeed, our goal is to deploy the GMA Jobs Center kiosks in all the 16 regions of the country, and in the process, bring closer the needed, vital jobs and skills information for free to both job seekers and employers."

Roque said that to achieve this purpose, the GMA Jobs Center is housed in a modern and convenient, touch screen and web-enabled, ATM-like machine capable of displaying information on employment opportunities and services for both would-be local and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Nationwide, Roque said that the system will be under the supervision of the DOLE's Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) complemented by the DOLE regional offices, adding that the kiosks had been successfully developed using the best of Filipino ingenuity and technology.

"In many ways, the GMA Jobs Center, through its online and user-friendly features in convenient locations accessible to people, will perform its function of bringing free information on both local and overseas job opportunities, and the relevant services, nearer to the Filipino people," Roque said.

He said that the kiosk will provide a job seeker with free job search, job skills matching services, skills registration, and other pertinent services. Simultaneously, the system will also make available to employers online registration, job postings for free, search for job applicants, and list of applicants with contact information.

The kiosks' unified, synchronized, and user-friendly jobs information are displayed clearly on a screen pressure sensitive to the touch of a finger or a stylus. Information also include the hottest jobs; the important BLE career guidance; list of workers certified by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and TESDA trainings; POEA list of licensed recruitment agencies; the services of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) for OFW members and dependents; the Philippines' centers of excellence and development; among others.

Source: Information and Publication Service, DOLE