Africa-Press – Botswana. The national Labour Market Information System (LMIS) will help to inform national policies on human resource development matters.
This was said by Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) business information systems manager, Mr Tapologo Hadebe Wednesday, during a consultative workshop on the development of the national LMIS.
Mr Hadebe explained that the LMIS was an information system and an active labour market policy instrument that collected, analysed, monitored and captured labour market information such as labour indicators, data, labour demand and supply forecast as well as any other labour market data.
He added that labour market information was key to all players.
Currently, he said the employment services, which had the job seekers database, was being prioritised and would be functional around September or October and would be much simpler, faster and easier to use.
“This will be functional in five months.
By September it will be launched, it will be live and it will be working. So, we are trying to prioritise, so that all the challenges and burning issues we identified are addressed and resolved quickly.
September we’ll be having our system.
Our developers are currently working on the designs that they are going to be giving to us, anytime,” he said.
However, he said the rest of the system, which was a fully-fledged LMIS, would be presented in September.
“We will be done with this project and we will be dealing with issues of capacity-building and rolling it out throughout the country,” he added.
He indicated that the project initiation document, which allowed for all the requirements validation to be done such as holding of stakeholders’ consultative workshops across various districts in the country, was signed in February.
In his welcome remarks, Gaborone deputy district commissioner, Mr Bahithi Keiphokotse said development of a national LMIS was a commendable initiative as the system would help incorporate all the vital information required by both ob seekers and employers.
Therefore, Mr Keiphokotse urged HRDC to make the system easily accessible and user-friendly and also encouraged job seekers to always keep their Curriculum Vitae up to date.
HRDC statistics and observatory manager, Mr Kgomotso Waditshwene explained that primarily, the LMIS generated and reported real-time labour market information and trends, increased accessibility and usability of labour market information by end users and increased awareness and promoted utilisation of labour market information by various labour market actors.
Once operational and functioning, Mr Waditshwene said the system would also help provide reliable labour market information for various actors regarding the labour market situation.
“It will also provide career, business and policy advice to influence proper decision-making across the Botswana labour market ecosystem,” he added.
Furthermore, he said LMIS would also help address burning issues, which included education and training system to produce job seekers and not job creators, lack of quality data to be used for effective planning and policy advice, data inconsistent and manually kept, uncoordinated access to labour market information, high numbers of the vulnerable and high dependency on government as well as high expenditure on education, but low quality, low relevance and lack of soft skills.
He added that LMIS was not a new concept, as the International Labour Organisation operated it.
At the regional level, he said SADC was also in the process of developing and implementing a regional LMIS, adding that ‘SADC countries are at different levels of implementation and data production and Botswana is ahead’.
As such, he said HRDC organised the workshop to update different stakeholders about the system and also afford them an opportunity to have an input and give feedback before finalising its development.
The workshop, he said was aimed at providing an update to stakeholders on the LMIS and according future users the opportunity to make an input to the development process, to ensure inclusive development, thereby leaving no one behind.
Additionally, he said it was aimed at sensitising stakeholders on their role in the successful delivery and functionality of the LMIS and related systems, informing them on the scope and milestones of the project and bringing HRDC mandate to the people.
Besides Gaborone, Mr Waditshwene said HRDC also organised similar consultative workshops at Maun, Ghanzi, Tsabong, Good Hope, Kasane, Francistown, Palapye and Selebi Phikwe.
Giving an overview, system developer and BITRI business analyst, Ms Kelebogile Serunya said LMIS would be inclusive and user-friendly for it to be easily accessible by people with disabilities and those in rural areas, as it would allow all job seekers to register for recruitment.
Ms Serunya said before registering on the system, job seekers would be verified through a National Identity System, and companies or employers would also be verified through the system before posting any vacancies on it.
“Through the system, job seekers would be able to understand job market dynamics, industry trends and skills required in the market,” she said.
Additionally, she said the system would also help job seekers to search and apply for jobs, address issues of skills mismatch by providing career advice and guidance to help users choose careers wisely and facilitate employers to conduct interviews and hire.
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