Podcast episode (Ep. 304) in which host John Jonas tells the story of Mark Jem, a college-educated graphic designer from Marinduque, Philippines, who was unemployed locally but found full-time remote work through online platforms (onlinejobs.ph), allowing him to stay with his family. The episode includes a field segment from Austin Jonas (a missionary in Marinduque) that explains local economic challenges—limited local jobs, import-driven cash drain, and family separation—and encourages listeners to hire Filipino remote workers to positively impact lives and local communities.
Chapters
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 304, Skilled but unemployed. This is Mark Gem's story. So I talked about this in a couple episodes ago on my podcast, but I want to talk about it again because it was so important and so impactful to me. So Mark Jem is one of the people that my son Austin, who is serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Philippines, is one of the people that my son knows. So I'm going to tell a little bit of Mark Gem's story. Mark Jem is a college graduate. He is an experienced graphic designer. He's also been unemployed and significantly unemployed. Why? Well, by all accounts, he should not be unemployed. He should have a job. He has a skill that's highly in demand. He's a graphic designer. He's intelligent, he's willing to work hard. But he's unemployed because he wants to stay in Marinduque, the island where he's from, where with his wife and his baby. But there just aren't jobs in Marinduque for people like him. Unfortunately, this is the norm in a lot of the Philippines where the parents have to find work elsewhere. They have to go to a different island, to Manila or to Cebu and find work. And then they only get to see their kids a few times a year if they're lucky, if they go international, go work on a cruise ship or go work in a hospital somewhere or whatever, it may be years before they see their kids again. And the irony in all of this is that he got a good education so that this didn't happen. But there just aren't jobs where he's from. There isn't much of a local economy. And so in order to provide for his family, he was about he was within a week away from having to get on a boat and take a 14 hour boat ride to Manila and find a job there so he could send money home to his family. He'll be miserable there, but it's better than watching your kids starve. Fortunately for Mark Jim Austin, who they became close friends and Austin happens to be my son. So Austin knew about onlinejobs Ph Mark Jem didn't and Austin was able to help him get a profile and find a job. Actually, I helped him find a job, but we were able to help him find a job really quickly so that he didn't have to leave his wife and his kids, which even when I found him a job. It was still super scary to him because he didn't know if he was going to get paid. He didn't know if this was going to work out where when you go in and work in a grocery store as a stocking shelves, you know you're going to get paid. The reward though was that Mark Jim got to stay at home and didn't have to travel. Mark Jim is now working as a graphic designer for a company here in the US Someone that I knew who was looking for a designer, he hired him. He actually told me it was rough for a few days. But then Mark Jem, it kind of clicked and they're really working together now. Things are going really, really well. So if you didn't catch the episode a few days ago, I'm gonna replay that video that Austin sent to me of Mark Jem and actually Austin sent me a whole bunch of videos. The video editor who works for me edited them all into one coherent, really good video. And, and if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll get to see it. If you're just listening to it, you'll hear, you'll hear what my son says. It's really, really interesting and you'll understand why Mark Jim wants to stay at home. He's living on a beautiful island. He has a community that loves and supports him and now he's making enough that he gets to love and support them back. Mark Jem was not asking for much. In fact I think, I think he's making $450 per month for full time work. He just wants enough to be able to support his family on this island which is definitely cheaper than supporting your family in Manila or in CE in a bigger city. But just be aware that when you hire someone, you change their life, you change their kids life, you change your business, you change the way you think about your future business. You may change their parents lives, you probably changing generation of lives in the Philippines because that person now sees a different path to how life can be and their kids are going to grow up seeing a different path to how life can be. And in fact I'm going to have to talk about this in another episode but I just got an email from one of my ofs who told me that her seventh grade daughter just got a, just got a job because we gave her a temporary job last summer during her summer break we let her do some stuff for us this summer she took the initiative and went out and got a job on her own doing some computer work. It's changing generations of lives and when you hire someone, you will see that you are part of changing, changing culture and changing generations and making life better for kids. And it just opens a new world.
Hi, my name is Elder Jonas and I'm a missionary in the Philippines for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Right now, I'm living on a small island in the heart of the Philippines called Marinduque. And some people know that the language they speak in the Philippines, in a lot of the Philippines, their national language is Tagalog. I am learning Tagalog. Matuto Akonong. Tagalog. I love it. I love it here right now, we're taking food to people that are in need. Here's our friend. His name is Nathan. We're teaching him a little bit about Jesus, which is awesome. And his uncle is a member of our church here in Marinduque. But he lost his job recently because his eyes were having problems. But he got his eyes fixed now so he's able to get a job again. My friend Mark Gem lives, he lives in this hut with his wife and newborn baby live here. And we teach them and we love them because we're close friends with them here. We have food packs we're going to take to people just down the street that are starving, they're sick and hungry and they're not able to work. And the reason there are people in need here because of the economy has gone to crap here. But Mark Jem here is very talented. He has a four year degree and he's worked for a graphic design company. So he's able to work for people. Mark Jem. Right now, Mark Jem is finishing his application for online jobs and he's taking the test he needs to take to have a good profile, which is awesome. My camera won't focus but say, hi, I'm Mark Jem. Marc Jim's looking for a job and he's gonna get one. Isn't that right? Yeah. We're gonna bless his life. Okay, so here's his house. It's simple. This is where him and his wife live. This is where they keep their baby and this is where they love their life. Here in the Philippines, most people just drive scooters around because it's way easier and it's always warm. It's beautiful. The reason the Philippines is in such an economic issue right now, and there's many reasons, but the biggest reason in my mind is because especially on little islands like this, there are families and they love their loving families and they're good, honest people, but they're buying and importing products from the mainland and other mainlands like China. And they're not exporting anything. So they do, they send their money out, but they don't receive any money back, if that makes sense to you. And because of that, they're not. They have a deficit of money. So what happens is Filipinos, in order to make up for this lack of money in the economy, there's no jobs. So what they have to do is they have to move abroad. You know, the parents have to leave their kids here with their grandparents and destroy their family and go and work just to help, help feed their kids in another land. And you know, you might think like in America you can just look and find a job. Like you just had to work hard not to find a job, but like there's legitimately not jobs. And I've lived here long enough to know that I speak the language and I know the people and it's hard. But you can help. And that's the amazing thing is while I'm literally physically here helping people, you can help by going to onlinejobs ph and hiring people to work for you and for your business and help bless these people's lives like I am, because I really care about these people and you can too. Not only will you bless their lives, they'll bless you. Because these people are honest and hard working. Let me tell you, these talented people like Mark Jem, who are kind and amazing, are living in little tiny houses like this and they have computers and they're able to do competent and diligent and good work. I've seen it the morning after a typhoon, they're out at their working their jobs, doing what they're supposed to do, even when there's floods. So go to onlinejobs PH and help bless these people's lives and they will bless you back. Sam.
