The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is launching a nationwide job fair on September 14 with the entire DOLE leadership team deployed across the country, and will follow it with monthly job fairs through the rest of the year, Labor Secretary Francis Tolentino said Thursday.
Tolentino explained his initiative in an interview on DZRH News program The Situation Report on September 10, saying he has personally assigned himself to the Pasig job fair while sending his team to locations including Davao and Tagaytay.
He said the September 14 fair is the largest in scale, designed to reach fresh graduates who have recently finished school as well as near-hires who came close to being hired in previous rounds but fell short on document requirements.
“May mga near hires before makapasok, marami tayong near hires na kinulang lang ng konting submission ng documents, tanggap na. Sila ang mga bibigyan natin ng pangalawang pagkakataon,” Tolentino said.
He said the monthly job fairs from October through December will be smaller in scale but continuous, ensuring that job seekers across the country have a regular government-facilitated opportunity to connect with employers throughout the hiring season.
Tolentino said job fairs are a practical expression of DOLE’s mandate to bridge the gap between graduates and the workforce, complementing the longer-term work being done through TESDA’s upskilling and reskilling programs to address jobs mismatch.
He said the department is also working to ensure that job fairs increasingly feature employers in sectors where demand is growing, including renewable energy installation, caregiving, and hospitality, rather than simply replicating the same industries at every fair.
