The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said on Sunday it has got an “overwhelming number” of applications from health workers after Japan opened its doors for nurses and caregivers. POEA Administrator Jennifer Manalili said the agency received about 7,000 applications for the initial 500 positions in Japan's hospitals and nursing homes. Of the 500 available positions, 200 are for nurses and 300 are for caregivers, Manalili said, adding that they will be deployed by June this year. She said 2,000 nurses have applied for the 200 open positions in hospitals and 5,000 caregivers for the 300 slots in nursing homes. Under the newly signed Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, Japan will hire 500 health workers from the Philippines every year. “We have received an overwhelming number of applications for the 200 positions for nurses and 300 for caregivers this year,” Manalili said. The first batch of health workers is set to be in Japan between April and June this year to take language training course for half a year before being assigned to hospitals and nursing-care facilities. POEA is doing the screening process and deployment of Filipino nurses to be sent to Japan and has released the names of those who passed the interviews and hospital requirements online. Manalili said the requirements for nurses and caregivers have been posted at the POEA website where the applicants could see the results of the screening process. The POEA website is www.poea.gov.ph. Although Japan has suffered from the global economic slump, Manalili said it has not cancelled its hiring of Filipino health workers. Manalili said that while US has closed its doors to Filipino nurses, other countries like Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, Singapore, and the Middle East have remained to be a good job market for Filipino nurses. “Majority of the Filipino nurses choose to work in America but since it is difficult at the moment to go to the US, we advise them to apply to other countries that are still hiring nurses,” Manalili said. “There are a lot of opportunities for qualified nurses.” There are about 250,000 Filipino nurses working in various countries across the world, mostly in the Middle East, the POEA said.
