In order to enhance labour market efficiency by providing actors with relevant and timely information for decision-making, the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs has officially launched the first phase of the country’s first Labour Market Information System (LMIS).

An LMIS is the information on the labour market presented in a consolidated and structured way, and accessible to different users.

It is built on consolidating labour market data collected from different providers (public and private).

The modules of the first phase of the LMIS have been developed by the ministry responsible for employment in close collaboration with the Department of Information Communications Technology (DICT).

They will be used to register vacancies, jobseekers, job placements, and application of redundancy.

The different modules will also assist the ministry to better serve and understand the needs of its clients, while providing information for labour market statistics and analysis.

The first phase of the project was launched yesterday by Vice-President Ahmed Afif, during a ceremony held at the Exiles Club in Victoria, in the presence of Minister for Employment and Social Affairs Patricia Francourt and principal secretary for Employment Jules Baker.

In her introductory remarks, Minister Francourt noted that we are living and working in a digital era, where many parts of our lives and the economy depends on information technology, and as the expectations of clients – the public – increase, they rely on public servants to deliver services timely and efficiently.

She said through these modules, the ministry will be better able to collect, compile and standardise more information on jobs in demand through registered vacancies and the people seeking employment.

This, she said, will also in turn enable it to provide a quicker feedback to its clients and to monitor their employment status.

Minister Francourt further noted that since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic the volume of data recorded by the Employment department has increased, while the move to digitalise the services and to implement the LMIS has been underway for a long time.

This, she said, is part of the ministry’s strategic plan and decent work country programme with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

“I must say that the Covid-19 pandemic has also accelerated this change given that labour market statistics have become of paramount importance more than ever before, in order to understand the economic outlook,” added Minister Francourt who further noted that the availability of reliable data will support this digital transformation and improve the employment analysis.

Minister Francourt also added that the ministry intends to do better and more and that it is its plan to engage private employment agencies to use this system and for the modules to go online for jobseekers and employers to submit applications directly online.

This, she added, will be another milestone that we look forward to.

She said the next phase of the LMIS will cover modules such as non-Seychellois employment and that the Ministry is also working in partnership with the National Bureau of Statistics and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to adopt the organisation’s system of LMIS where all data at national level related to employment will be centralised, compiled, analysed and published.

She thanked the Employment and DICT teams who have worked tirelessly on the development of the forms, programming of the system and facilitating the necessary training to Employment officers on Mahé, Praslin and La Digue.

“Your work is appreciated and you have persevered even when our office operations were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic,” added Minister Francourt.

LMIS provides an essential basis for employment and labour policies, and inform the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies that are better focused and targeted, while it also contributes to a reduction in the transaction costs of labour markets as they help overcome incomplete information of labour market agents.

Roland Duval