More than 105,000 job openings will be available at the Department of Education and the Department of Health next year, Cebu Rep. Gerald Anthony Gullas Jr., deputy majority leader, said Monday.
“Besides the 81,100 new teaching positions that will be filled up by DepEd, the DoH will also be hiring another 24,415 allied health professionals, mainly for deployment to rural districts,” Gullas said.
In the proposed P3.767-trillion General Appropriations Act for 2018, the
DOH has a P9.7-billion allocation to take on an additional 20,527 nurses, 3,108 midwives, 446 physicians and 324 dentists, according to Gullas.
“These job vacancies at the two departments augur well for our newly licensed teachers and nurses who are still looking for gainful employment,” Gullas said.
In the last 15 months alone, Gullas said the country produced a total of 109,732 new professional teachers.
He added that in the last 12 months, the country also produced a total of 16,901 new registered nurses.
Both figures were based on new licenses issued by the Professional Regulation Commission.
Gullas is the author of bills seeking to upgrade the entry-level basic remuneration of teachers and nurses in the public sector from Salary Grade (SG) 11 to SG 15.
At present, at SG 11, teachers and nurses in government receive a starting monthly salary of P19,620, which will increase to P20,179 by Jan. 1, 2018, and then to P20,754 by Jan. 1, 2019, under Executive Order 201 of 2016.
Under Gullas’ proposal, at SG 15, the two groups of licensed professionals in the public sector will get an entry-level monthly pay of P27,565, which will rise to P29,010 by Jan. 1, 2018, and then to P30,531 by Jan. 1, 2019.
This developed as a total of 3,572 Philippine-educated nurses took the US licensure examination for the first time from January to June this year, in the hope of practicing their profession in America.
The figure is up 22.7 percent compared to the 2,910 Filipino nurses that took the US NCLEX for the first time (excluding repeaters) in the first semester of 2016.
The number of Filipino nurses taking the NCLEX for the first time is considered a reliable indicator as to how many of them are trying to obtain US licenses and seek employment in America.
A total of 6,322 Filipino nurses took the NCLEX for the first time in the whole of 2016, up 18.8 percent from 5,320 in 2015.