Job in Manila

I looked for jobs in Manila from Jan-May.  Went to a few interviews, which were awful experiences, no job offers.  Id say your chances are approaching zero.

Say you do get a job at a call center.  Are you willing to work the graveyard shift, getting yelled at by unhappy customers while getting paid 30k pesos ($600) per month?  Where will you live on that kind of money? 

Mandaluyong is about the lowest quality of life neighborhood a foreigner would accept and youre lucky to get $400/mo on a short term lease.  Then electric will be another $100/mo in summer.  How will you have money leftover for food?

Just being realistic here.  Better to have an online business of some kind so you dont have to deal with the corrupt and inefficient beauracracy.  Good luck!

Hi Rob.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience.
Are you bilingual or are you an English native speaker? Because the jobs I was looking for were specifically for native speaker of "second language other than English".....and for that kind of job salary should be at least 45.000 ph a month. This is what jobs advertisements states on  jobs web sitesand what others fews European expats reported me. BUT obviously I must find out by my self. to know the real TRUTH.

Anyway, I wish all the best for your aims.

If someone else will share their experiences will be super appreciated!!

Thanks

Yes, I am not bi-lingual, and my reply was slightly pessimistic as I think its important to understand the pitfalls of finding jobs as a foreigner in the Philippines.

PHP45k+ is doable, but difficult to find.  Italian may be too niche, but other languages like Korean or Mandarin may be easier to find jobs for, even around 70k+.

As a native English speaker, it should have been feasible to find jobs which require advanced English speaking ability and pay upwards of 50k, but I didnt find any.  Youre competing against a very large labor pool who are willing to work for very little pay.  Getting a work permit is usually difficult to secure and you may be in a situation where they encourage you to work under the table.

45k is still difficult to get by on.  At a combined income of 80k between my girlfriend and I, we dont save much and we try to cut costs as much as possible.  Having a local girlfriend to split rent and other costs with helps stretch your paycheck tremendously.

If you are an Italian with a European passport look at Italian companies that do business in the Philippines to gain employment. Get a job with a company that needs to have employees work for them in the Philippines on assignment.  This way you can get paid as a EU resident working for the compnany in the Philippines rather than a local hire.