Dave Devilles | March 29, 2019
Aboitiz Construction, Inc. (ACI) fully supports the government’s ‘Build Build Build = Jobs Jobs Jobs’ program by participating in the caravan, which has been going around the country to mount job fairs that are designed for job-seeking skilled workers. In its recent job fair held at Subic Bay Freeport on February 9, ACI hired 24 out of the 186 applicants who lined up at the company’s booth that day.

Randy Valera, 43, is one of those who were hired on-the-spot and will be working as quality assurance and control inspector. Randy is married and has four children. To be able to provide for his family, he decided to go overseas to work as a surveyor and quality control engineer at a gas refinery in the United Arab Emirates. However, he was laid off last July 2018 when recession affected his employer and he had no choice but to go home. When he heard that the job caravan will be in held in Subic, he decided to try his luck but was wary because he has never applied through a job fair before.
I feel blessed and thankful for this opportunity. It’s been months now that I am jobless and it could be difficult for an OFW like myself to find work that has a good pay and good working environment.
– Randy Valera, 43, hired-on-the-spot
Randy Valera, 43, is one of those hired on-the-spot and will be working as a quality assurance and control inspector. Randy is married and has four children. To be able to provide for his family, he decided to go overseas to work as a surveyor and quality control engineer at a gas refinery in the United Arab Emirates. However, he was laid off last July 2018 when recession affected his employer and he had no choice but to go home. When he heard that the job caravan will be in held in Subic, he decided to try his luck but was wary because he has never applied through a job fair before.

Aboitiz Construction also hired on-the-spot fitters, millwrights, painters, riggers, scaffolders, tool keepers, and welders. Two of the skilled workers were former Hanjin project employees, Ariel Bunao, 40, with two children, and Romel Bacongan, 35, also with two children.
Ariel will work as a scaffolder and Romel as a millwright. Both of them have worked for Hanjin for 10 years and were among those retrenched when Hanjin closed shop here in the Philippines. Similarly, it was also their first time to apply for work in a job fair.
Meanwhile, ACI’s participation in the Mega Job Fair held at Tacloban City on March 15 yielded 45 on-the-spot hires out of the 65 applicants. The Mega Job Fair was spearheaded by the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) and the Public Employment Service Office of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). ACI is an active partner of TESDA through technical-vocational skills training project in Cebu.
The Aboitiz Technical Training Center (ABOITIZTECH) will be relaunched this year with the objective of helping more Filipinos obtain productive employment in the construction sector.