Four Japanese companies with manufacturing facilities inside the First Philippine Industrial Park (FPIP) economic zone in Santo Tomas and Tanauan cities in Batangas are hiring over a thousand additional workers.

Lopez-led FPIP posted the employment opportunities during the “Sulong Buhay Job Fair” that FPIP and the local government unit (LGU) of Santo Tomas City, along with other local stakeholders, held last 18 July inside the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) campus also in Santo Tomas City.

John Carlo Navalta, FPIP external relations manager, said the four Japanese companies need at least 1,430 new workers.

The four companies are Brother Industries (Philippines) Inc., Canon Business Machines (Philippines) Inc., Ibiden (Philippines) Inc., and Philippine Manufacturing Co. of Murata Inc.

Navalta added that close to a thousand of the new openings are for engineers, accountants, nurses, human resource personnel, and other office-based workers.

New grads mostly

So far, 457 of the job applicants, most of them fresh or recent PUP graduates, have hurdled the initial screening and will undergo the next stage of evaluation and screening, including interviews. Roughly a thousand jobs remain open for job seekers.

Santo Tomas Mayor Arth Jhun Aguilar Marasigan said that the LGU and other stakeholders in the city regularly hold job fairs to match, on one hand, the search among companies in Santo Tomas City for new workers, with the need among Santo Tomas residents for gainful employment, on the other hand.

“This is one way for us to help the locators hire professionals who are home-grown talents in Santo Tomas and the province of Batangas.

“At the same time, it gives Tomasinos opportunities to get decent and high-quality jobs,” she pointed out.