ILOILO — Iloilo has emerged as the employment powerhouse of Western Visayas, accounting for several of the region’s biggest concentrations of job vacancies in August as employers sought thousands of workers for domestic, customer service, defense and skilled-trade positions.
Data from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) showed the Province of Iloilo posting 8,411 vacancies, the highest among locations monitored through the Public Employment Service Office Statistical Performance Reporting System (PESO-SPRS).
Iloilo City followed closely with 7,852 vacancies, while Ajuy, Iloilo recorded 5,647 openings — placing three Iloilo areas at the top of the regional hiring list.
Other Iloilo localities also figured prominently, with Estancia recording 2,241 vacancies; Concepcion, 1,949; and Oton, 1,126.
The figures underscored Iloilo’s role as Western Visayas’ principal employment hub amid what DOLE-6 described as a dynamic regional labor landscape marked by strong demand for domestic and customer service workers and changing workforce participation trends.
Capiz and Aklan also emerged as significant employment centers.
Cuartero, Capiz registered 2,184 vacancies, followed by the Province of Aklan with 1,890, Dumalag, Capiz with 1,624, and Tapaz, Capiz with 1,316.
The August 2026 issue of DOLE-6’s Labor Market Information (LMI) Weekly, compiled from the PESO Employment Information System (PEIS), PhilJobNet and PESO-SPRS, showed thousands of vacancies posted across Western Visayas from August 1 to 31.
Household service workers dominated the regional demand with 10,263 vacancies — nearly three times the 3,655 openings for customer service representatives, the second-largest category.
Domestic helpers ranked third with 3,526 vacancies.
Recruitment for the Candidate Soldier Course generated another 2,300 openings, while sheet and structural metal workers accounted for 2,081 vacancies.
The labor market also showed substantial demand for healthcare and technical workers, including 877 staff nurses, 516 electrical equipment installers and repairers, 536 machinery mechanics and repairers, and 205 welders.
Other openings included 544 cashiers, 540 cleaners, 500 office-based English teachers, 400 slots for the Officers Candidate Course, 321 service crew positions, 300 financial advisers, 252 client information workers, 237 material recording and transport clerks, 235 dining crew positions, 213 kitchen crew positions and 200 loan officers.
PEIS serves as a nationwide database of jobseekers, employers, vacancies and transactions of Public Employment Service Offices, including employer and jobseeker profiles and vacancies captured through PhilJobNet.
SPRS, meanwhile, monitors PESO employment facilitation activities and performance.
The strong volume of vacancies comes as Western Visayas continues to draw more of its working-age population into the labor market.
Figures released by the Philippine Statistics Authority Region 6 (PSA-6) on September 7 showed that Western Visayas had a 63.4 percent Labor Force Participation Rate as of April 2026.
This translated to approximately 2.23 million people actively participating in the labor force out of an estimated 3.52 million working-age population aged 15 years and older.
The PSA clarified that overseas Filipino workers are excluded from the domestic working-age population estimates and local labor force counts because their economic data fall outside the System of National Accounts production boundary for domestic labor./PN
