By: Carmela Bignotia

Various development projects in countries from the Gulf area like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and United Arab Emirates (UAE) particularly Dubai necessitates the hiring of foreign workers in the field of construction and tourism.

As the two countries mentioned are both favorite destination of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), a large number of OFWs are presently employed there. Still, the current and upcoming infrastructure projects of these countries in the Middle East would open more employment opportunities for Filipino construction and hotel workers.

An estimated 11,000 more jobs would be available in Dubai while KSA would need 30,000 more construction and hotel workers. According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) administrator, Rosalinda Baldoz, “There are a lot of job orders for construction, operations and maintenance crew, hotel and restaurant personnel and tourism-related workers.”

Dubai will continue to keeps on hiring Filipino workers because of the boom in the construction sector. The current 14,000 to 17,000 OFWs deployed to Dubai per year is expected to rise up to 25,000 OFWs a year.

On the other hand, the Saudi’s program to build nine mega cities would require more laborers. According to the Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. (Pasei), 30,000 workers are needed for the construction of one city.

However, the POEA chief, Baldoz also sent out a warning for hopeful jobseekers in dealing with illegal recruiters who offer tourist visas instead of working visas to work in Dubai and Saudi.

Source: www.ofwguide.com