SPEECH OF THE HONOURABLE MINISTER FOR LABOUR AND SOCIAL SECURITY
AT THE LAUNCH OF THE LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION SYSTEM.
Program Director,
Honouable Members of Senate of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Portfolio Committee
Honourable Members of the House Assembly of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Portfolio Committee
Principal Secretary
Representatives of Social Partners, Business ad Workers
Representatives from Various Companies and Government Departments
Our most important guest and Consultant for the project we are launching today Mr. Vikesh
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good Morning
When the current administration took office His Excellency the Right Honourable Minister made it his priority to get the economy working once again and one of the key sectors identified in the Strategic Road Map to focus on towards reviving the economy is Information Communication and Technology (ICT). Repositioning ICT to be at the centre of the country’s economic revival strategy is vital for increasing efficiency levels in our service delivery systems but also more important in preparing service our institutions to be adaptive to the unfolding 4th Industrial Revolution. What will separate transforming economies from stagnant or at the worst regressing ones in this new era it will be the extent to which drivers sectors of the economy have access to information particularly information relating to the labour market. The key economic drivers to such information is crucial include among others businesses, workers, policy makers, researchers, institutions of higher learning, students and development agencies. With this project we are launching today, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security’s objective is to avail to the Eswatini public a one stop labour information system which they can use to access labour laws, official labour reports, and employment statistics as well as provide an interface platform between job seekers and available vacancies in the labour market.
Getting to this stage of developing a functional Labour Market Information System has not been an easy task. I want to recognize and express our special thanks to the African Development Bank – Statistical Capacity Building Programs for the support they provided in designing the system and training our officers on all technical aspects of operationalizing this system. Thank you to the Central Statistics Office for providing professional support extended to the project from conception up to this day and we are extremely encouraged as the Ministry of Labour and Social Security with the commitment CSO has made to work with us all the way into the future in ensuring that the system serves the intended purpose for many years to come.
The multi-agency Technical Working Group whose members were drawn from the government, business and workers is commended for staying focused on the assignment, without whose co-ordination skills and technical input we will not be launching this LMIS today.
Thank you to the Central Bank of Eswatini for supporting this initiative in many ways but most importantly by providing meeting venues whenever such were needed including the venue for this launch. I note with appreciation the support my Ministry received from the Ministry of Public Service in respect of providing the employees required to support the operation of the system, these being the the IT specialist and two statisticians. Though these are currently engaged on short term basis for now we are confident that making these positions permanent will be considered soon. Last but not in any way least, I thank the consultant Mr. Vikash. I am particularly noting the passion, skill and competence with which he explained the functionality of the system.
I am glad that the Consultant is handing over to us a functional system which as I speak you, you can access in your electronic hand gadgets as well as in the comfort of your office and home. This system will help my Ministry a lot in producing vital labour statistics reports and these are the Labour Force Survey and the Employment and Wages Surveys. Currently these reports are produced in intervals of about 30 months which is way outside average intervals in many countries internationally. With the introduction of this system the Ministry targets to produce employment and labour statistical reports in intervals of 12 months. It is important that these reports are produced in very short intervals to give accurate information on the behavior and status of the labaour market such as the unemployment rate, the labour absorption rate, job security across sectors, youth unemployment, gender inequality in work places, employment by industry, wage bill, compliance with labour standards, public /private sector employment and many others. These statistics are important in developing appropriate employment and labour policies; developing long term human resource planning and development programs and tracking impact of national programs in providing employment opportunities to all segments of the population.
We are going to do our part as government to regularly populate the system with the relevant data, produce and post the results in the system. There are costs associated with this exercise and we are appealing to all partners to support government with whatever possible to help us keep to this promise without thinking about our current budget constraints. We will for example require modern gadgets such as tablets to regularly collect data and post the data in real time from remote places to a central server eliminating the high transportation costs associated with carrying out surveys of this nature. I also want to make a special appeal to all employers in the public, private and the NGO sector to use this system to post vacancies. This will make it easy for job seekers to have information of where their services are required in the economy. If all employers were to place vacancies in this platform employers will most likely attract the best and most relevant skill. Job seekers on the other end will know all job requirements before applying and students still in training will know jobs that are in demand and level of proficiency employers are looking for.
May I at this time invite all of you to pause and focus on the screen as I type www.lmis.gov.sz and present the system to Eswatini public and anyone in the world to access and use the reports contained therein.
I thank you and the Eswatini Labour Market Information System is officially launched.