Fresh wave of e-mailed UK job offers prompts 'reminder' from DOLE

MANILA, Philippines — A new wave of e-mail messages offering job opportunities in the United Kingdom has prompted labor officials to remind prospective overseas Filipino workers to be wary of such job offers.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) urged caution especially for job offers requiring applicants to send money as payment for visa and work permits.

In an article on the DOLE website (www.dole.gov.ph), DOLE Secretary Marianito Roque said the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in London has recorded more than 200 e-mails from job applicants and recruitment agencies seeking verification of the job offers they received through the Internet.

He said the applicants received job offers through e-mail with scanned appointment letters, work confirmation, and employment contracts from supposed UK employers.

The e-mails had instructions to contact specified travel agencies, immigration firms, and solicitors in the UK who would purportedly help them in the processing of work permits and visas.

Applicants were subsequently asked to remit a sum of money to a certain account as payment for their work permit, visa processing, and other fees.

But the job offers were found to be "fake, deceptive, and illegal" as all visa applications will now be filed at the UK Visa Application Center of the British Embassy in Manila.

Roque added the application should be done personally by the applicants.

He also said that travel agencies, immigration consultants, recruitment firms, solicitors or barristers, and other agents in the UK are not authorized to act as sponsor of applicants.

Neither can they process or apply for working visas in the UK in behalf of the applicants, he said.

Roque likewise noted that even recruitment agencies in the country have been enticed to take recruitment offers in the Internet and to advertise vacancies in their behalf for manpower pooling.

He cited a case involving the Global Logistics & Trading Shipping Co., which posted its job orders and interview schedule at www.workabroad.com.ph under Primeworld Manpower Agency.

But a check by the POLO in London found that Global Logistics is not a licensed UK firm.


Points system

For his part, London-based Labor Attache Jainal Rasul Jr. advised Filipino applicants that based on the new UK Points Based System (PBS), only highly skilled professionals would be eligible for work visas in the UK, unless the positions are included in the shortage occupation list.

At present, most of the available semi-skilled, and low-skilled jobs in the UK are no longer open to non-Europeans, particularly in hotels, restaurants, food catering, retail business, construction and manufacturing.

For visa application under the new PBS immigration rule, a work permit is no longer a requirement and has now been replaced by the new sponsorship system.

This means that the UK Border Agency (Immigration Office) no longer issues work permits for entry visa purposes.

In place of the work permit, the UK Border Agency issues sponsorship license to UK employers who in turn sends the 'certificate of sponsorship' to their qualified candidates or applicants as a requirement for online visa application at the British Embassy in Manila. - GMANews.TV

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