Employers encouraged to use Labour Market Information System
EMPLOYERS and training institutions are being encouraged to partner with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, through the Labour Market Information System (LMIS), to build Jamaica’s workforce.
The ministry’s LMIS is a Web-based job-matching facility that pairs jobseekers and employers.
Senior labour market analyst in the Planning, Research and Monitoring Unit at the ministry Shane Palmer said part of the ministry’s approach is to undertake sector studies, national labour market studies, and research activities to provide information to jobseekers and employers.
He pointed out that the information from studies and researchs are used to populate the LMIS with labour market information, adding that the results from sector studies have shown that business process outsourcing (BPO) and tourism are the major growth areas in Jamaica.
Palmer said that the ministry provides career development services and training opportunities, which are labour market driven. “What we want is to help persons to understand the importance of registering with the system’s skills bank,” he said. Meanwhile, Systems Development Manager Dwayne Walters has assured that the LMIS platform is secure.
“It is important for the ministry to run a secured platform, with the rise of cybersecurity threats. We have introduced a secure socket layer (SSL), which is a first for the LMIS site, to ensure the security posture for the application,” he said.
Director of the Electronic Labour Exchange (ELE) and labour component coordinator of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-funded Integrated Social and Labour Support Programme within the ministry, Lyndon Ford said the ministry has been engaging stakeholders through different outreach strategies such as forums, workshops, and exit-readiness activities.
“We make linkages in terms of engaging stakeholders to see how best we can improve the skill sets acquisition by actually going into training institutions and have jobseekers trained and graduate, and we also visit schools to participate in career day and job fair activities,” he said.
