Hope and Hires: Labor Day job fair draws nearly 1,000 job seekers

A total of 939 job seekers registered at job fairs held in Dumaguete City, SM Seaside, and Bohol on May 1, 2025, with 259 applicants hired on the spot. Of the registrants, 439 were male and 500 were female. | CDN Photo/ Pia Piquero

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The air on Labor Day 2025 pulsed with a mix of hope, nerves, and the low hum of thousands of dreams in motion.

Applicants lined up, clutching brown envelopes. Some were neatly organized, others worn at the edges from weeks of pursuit.

The soft shuffle of feet, the occasional laugh, the murmured prayers before interviews, all painted a scene more powerful than any press briefing or government statistic.

Among the crowd was 19-year-old Jireh Christine Yuson from Medellin, wide-eyed and hopeful, in her very first attempt at job hunting. She came prepared with polished papers and rehearsed answers, but nothing could have readied her for the moment when the words “hired on the spot” were finally spoken.

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“Mixed emotion jud (Mixed emotions really),” she said. “Abi nimog dili ka madawat, pero naa jud diay modawat nimo (I thought that I would not be hired, but there are really those who would hire me).”

Nearby stood Mevelyn Sollano, 24, from San Roque, Talisay. It was her second attempt at job seeking, and no less nerve-racking than the first.

“Mura kog nangulba gamay (I’m a little nervous),” she shared. “Ug ampo jud nga unta makasulod ta (And praying really that I will be hired).”

She was offered a position in housekeeping, though the job would not begin until September. Still, the promise of employment brought a soft relief.

“Antos lang kog gamay (I would just have to endure a little),” she added.

Mevelyn had found the job posting while scrolling through Facebook.

“Wala nakoy trabaho ba (I have no more work),” she said. “Mao to pag-scroll scroll nako, nang-hire ang SM… mao to mianhi ko (That is why when I scrolled that SM was hiring…that is why I came here).”

They were just two among 508 job seekers who registered at the SM Seaside job fair on May 1.

READ: Unemployment drops, but struggles remain: DOLE-7 urges skills upgrade

Across the three job fair sites in Central Visayas—Dumaguete City, Bohol, and Cebu—a total of 939 individuals came in search of work, their numbers nearly equally split between men (439) and women (500).

By 5:00 p.m., the Department of Labor and Employment in Central Visayas (DOLE-7) recorded 259 individuals hired on the spot. SM Seaside alone accounted for half of that—130 Hired-on-the-Spot (HOTS).

The job fair was a flurry of activity. Booths lined the concourse, staffed by employers from industries as varied as housekeeping and hospitality to BPOs and retail chains.

READ: DOLE to distribute P2.57-billion aid to workers nationwide

Lawyer Roy Buenafe, regional director of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Central Visayas, in a press briefing ahead of the event, noted over 3,000 local job vacancies from 41 participating employers.

And while the BPO industry still leads in hiring demand, Buenafe acknowledged a shift in the workforce landscape.

“Medyo duna na pud tay challenge sa skills… That is why we call on TESDA and the academe nga atong pahimuslan ang retooling and upskilling intervention,” he said.

(We had a bit of challenge in skills…That is why we call on Tesda and the academe that we avail of retooling and upskilling intervention.)

The government’s push toward greener, digital, and care-based economies is slowly finding traction.

Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma of DOLE previously emphasized exploring jobs outside the conventional sectors, toward healthcare, IT, and sustainability-focused industries.

To ease the process, DOLE’s one-stop shop offered on-site services from agencies like SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, NBI, and PSA, a lifeline for job seekers who often find themselves burdened by the bureaucracy of pre-employment requirements.

“Importante ilang presensya (Their presence are important) ,” Buenafe said, “arun dili na intawn maglakaw-lakaw atong mga aplikante pagpangita sa dokumento (so that the applicants would not have to keep on walking looking for documents).”

But for most, the numbers mattered little in the face of the personal battles they overcame just to show up: the last coins spent on jeepney fare, the hurried printing of resumes, the self-doubt quelled only by the urgent need to provide.

In a time when job security still feels elusive and underemployment is all too common, Labor Day became a celebration of resilience and of those brave enough to keep trying.