About 8,000 local jobs will be made available to returning overseas Filipino workers who lost their jobs amid a global health crisis, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE).

At least two companies have reached out to the Bureau of Local Employment to offer jobs to the displaced workers, the agency said in a statement on Monday.

The companies were Optum Global Solutions and EMS Group of Companies. Optum is an information technology that provides healthcare solutions, while EMS is a subcontracting group that offers electronic and manufacturing services, according to their websites.

Optum has about 4,000 job openings for nurse case management specialists, clinical operation specialists and customer service specialists. EMS also has about 4,000 job openings at its technoparks in Laguna and Batangas provinces including production operators and assembly workers, DoLE said.

More than 300,000 OFWs have lost their jobs and the number could balloon to a million by 2021, agency officials told a House of Representatives hearing last week. — Gillian M. Cortez

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