AG&P to hire Pinoy engineers displaced in MidEast upheaval

MANILA, Philippines - The Atlantic Gulf & Pacific Co. of Manila (AG&P) is now considering hiring Filipino engineers displaced by the conflict in the Middle East, particularly in Libya after President Aquino asked the company to employ those workers.

“They talk about the possibility of absorbing workers displaced in Libya. As you know many Filipino workers in Libya were working on oil rigs, oil refineries and AG&P is now looking at hiring thousands of those workers who were displaced from Libya,” Secretary Ramon Carandang of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning office said in a press briefing in Malacañang yesterday.

“So that’s good news for some of those people who left their jobs behind. They can find jobs here in the Philippines,” he added.

President Aquino talked with some executives of AG&P on Thursday, who said that the company is in need of as many as 4,000 engineers who have experience working in oil refining facilities.

Carandang said there are 25,000 Filipinos who used to work in Libya and around 22,000 have to leave the country because of the unrest there. Not all of these workers however are engineers who are qualified for the AG&P job but he added that a substantial number of them are hoping that they could be absorbed by the company.

While AG&P cannot match the compensation of Filipino engineers in Libya, Carandang said company officials have assured the President that these engineers could have compensation levels that are competitive.

“They are highly skilled workers [engineers] and I visited the AG&P facility, they provide housing, they provide food, they are caring at AG&P and I think its certainly a better alternative than going back to Libya (which is) certainly not a place that we recommend for our engineers to go,” Carandang said.

While visiting the company facility in Bauan, Batangas last Thursday, President Aquino thanked AG&P for its contributions to the local economy and asked it to absorb professionals displaced by the turmoil abroad.

The President witnessed a ceremony for shipping out oil refinery modules for the British Petroleum modularization project.

The President also told AG&P officials that his administration is doing everything it can to build an environment where business can thrive and prosper and create jobs