No jobs yet for OFWs in Yukon —Bello

The government warned Filipino jobseekers wishing to work in Canada that there is no job opening in the Yukon territory, following reports received by the Philippine Overseas Labor Office about a fraudulent scheme luring Filipinos to work in that country.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the scammer uses the name of a website of a legitimate Yukon human resources practitioner to dupe unsuspecting Filipinos.

“Unsuspecting victims were then asked to pay the amount of US$D440 in exchange for non-existent jobs,” Bello said, adding “there is no job opening yet because a bilateral labor pact has yet to be signed between the two parties.”

The Labor chief believed that the fraudsters took advantage of the Department of Labor and Employment’s announcement in September last year on the employment opportunities in various industries in Yukon. 

It was in August last year when Bello and Minister Ranj Pillai signed a joint communique to establish cooperation on the recruitment of Filipino workers to Yukon.

After the signing, a proposed memorandum of understanding was forwarded to Yukon, which aims to establish a system for the recruitment process in the deployment of Filipinos through a Nominee program under a government-to-government arrangement.

“This government to government agreement shall validate the existence of guaranteed employment offers. Hence, we are warning the public to be very cautious of this scam that seemingly capitalizes on the still-to-be finalized labor agreement between the Philippines and Yukon,” Bello said.

“Based on the report by our POLO Vancouver, the Yukon government is still studying the memorandum of understanding, and DOLE will provide an update on this undertaking,” Bello said.

Bello advised the public to validate the authenticity of any job offers with the POEA through its website poea.gov.ph.