In most countries job seekers find difficulties in landing a job when they hit their late 40s or early 50s. Not so in the Philippines. There, with the constant waves of fresh job seekers coming onto the job market every six months, employers can be picky and change their work force regularly. With such a huge number of people constantly clamoring for work, you’re lucky to find something at age 30, and downright miraculous if you can find a decent job after the age of 35!
This is especially true if you work in the service sector, i.e. either in sales or as a waiter, and do not have exceptional skills or a high level of education. People in these types of jobs usually don’t build a secure career with one company (who does nowadays anyway?) and jumping from one job to the next is standard practice. In the Philippines that is fine as long as you are young and good-looking, but once you’re past 35 even if you look younger than your age, you can forget finding a decent job.
I know several male Filipino secretaries who have built whole careers on working in Saudi Arabia. Here they can get good jobs with salaries they could only dream of getting back home. Indeed, as one friend pointed out to me, hardly anyone hires male secretaries in the Philippines since there is an army of female secretaries ready to perform the same job at a lower salary.
This brings me to the case of friend whom I will call Fred. After working in Saudi Arabia on and off for the past 10 years he decided to return home two years ago. He thought he just needed a break from being an OFW, wanting to spend time with his widowed mother in the province. Without a college degree, Fred had found himself locked into low-paying service jobs, first as a waiter then as a salesman, but his Saudi salary was still bigger than what many people with similar jobs could ever earn back home.
At 37, but looking younger, recruitment agencies gladly accepted his application until they saw that he was over 35. It was thus a shock for him when he recently started applying for a new job abroad and found that he was effectively locked out of the labor market for being "too old."
Filipinos are often amazed at finding older flight attendants working for European and US airlines, where they are esteemed for their experience and seniority (and of course protected by labor unions and labor laws). This is in stark contrast to Asian airlines such as Singapore Airlines where female flight attendants are usually booted out of such jobs once they hit 30!
I don’t know what the solution is to this problem, but I do think the Catholic Church should start actively and aggressively preaching family planning to Filipinos. The Philippines is sinking into a morass of humanity with its high population growth rate. The Church is leading the nation into an abyss of poverty, despair and criminality by telling Filipinos to procreate as much as they want. Philippine politicians need to wake up and not fear confronting the church on this important issue. The Philippines is already paying a dire price for having unhindered population growth.
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Anthrax anxiety sweeps globe
PUNDITS IN AMERICA have already come up with a term for what many Americans are feeling following the mounting number of anthrax-exposure cases: "Anthrax anxiety."
Hoax anthrax-laced letters have started popping up around the world, including one sent to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper in London on Wednesday. This all brought back memories of a certain demented woman who years ago used to send long letters to the editor-in-chief of Arab News. The letters used to arrive every week reeking of perfume and were several pages long. What was disturbing was that when staff used to open them, talcum powder would come falling out! Eventually, the staff came to recognize her missives and immediately tossed them into the trash basket.
I’m just glad that she stopped writing them years ago. If her letters were still arriving today, I’m sure we’d have half the staff of the newspaper fleeing the building in horror.
But don’t despair. If you receive mail that you are suspicious of, experts say you only have to iron it with a hot steam iron to kill the anthrax spores within. The other method of killing the spores is to microwave your mail. Now, should that be for a minute or should I microwave it to a crisp for five minutes?
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‘Yes’ to longer weekends
MANY READERS wrote to me to disagree with my comments last week about the five-holiday weekends, which are being introduced in the Philippines, being too long and a waste of labor.
Most pointed out that although they couldn’t afford to travel around the Philippines, they viewed the upcoming All Saints Day five-day holiday as a chance to reconnect with their families and loved ones. "Working five-and-a-half days a week, I welcome the upcoming five-day holiday weekend as a chance to be with my mother in the province," wrote one reader.
Even so, I still think five-day holiday weekends are far too long. Three-day holiday weekends would be more acceptable, but five days off from work will just harm Philippine productivity at this critical time. With economies everywhere slowing down, is this really the time for the Philippines to slow down even more? I don’t think so.
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SOME FRIENDS OF mine are wondering why they rarely see letters written by Pinoys published in the Arab News letters section. The truth is that fewer and fewer Filipinos care to write at all. This is sad because there are supposed to be about 800,000 Filipinos in the Kingdom and probably less than 50 care to write to express their opinion about what’s happening at home or in the community in the Kingdom. Those blessed with better education or experience should lead the way. Share your fine thoughts that others may be inspired.
On the other hand, some of those who have sent letters in the past may have felt discouraged after these were not published.
The secret in writing letters to the editor is to focus on a specific topic and make it concise and straight to the point. Trying to tackle so many topics at a time not only confuses but lead to a kilometric letter. Long letters are usually reserved to public officials trying to clarify matters or a specialist trying to expound on a relevant subject.
