Second Phase Upgrading of LMIS to be Completed This Year

The second phase of upgrading of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security’s Labour Market Information System (LMIS) is set to be completed later this year.

Director of Research and Analysis at the Ministry, Simone McKenzie-Mair, said this will see the inclusion of more options for employers and job seekers, the result of which is expected to improve the services offered by the LMIS.

“We are targeting stakeholders so we have an employers’ page and they will be able to find information on labour laws. They will also be able to send in queries to the Ministry on any problems and they will be able to do short surveys on labour market needs,” she informed during an interview with JIS News.

She said job seekers will also be given personality tests that will seek to match them to careers based on their character traits, while benefitting from information on career development services.

Mrs. McKenzie-Mair is urging more persons to register with the LMIS’ skills bank as it will add to the pool of qualified persons within the database, resulting in more employers using the system to find suitable employees.

“We want to register certified skilled workers, professionals and technicians. The idea of the skills bank is to ensure that we are able to have persons distributed across the island with various skills so that investors and employers will know that Jamaica has available skills,” she said.

Mrs. McKenzie-Mair further noted that there are “numerous possibilities for employment with the much talked about logistics hub” and is encouraging persons, especially those in the transportation sector to make preparations to take advantage of the opportunities.

“We see the need for transportation workers including drivers and we are imploring [them] to learn another language like Spanish that will assist [them as we interact in a global market]. Warehouse personnel, assemblers and logistics officers will also be needed,” she pointed out.

The Director of Research and Analysis informed that there are also opportunities for employment in the “green sector” to include renewable energy, civil engineering, livestock production, fish farming, bee keeping, food technology and product development technology.

Phase one of the LMIS was launched in November 2013 and focused on the placement of job seekers. Since then, there has been over 8,000 registrants and over 250 employers.

The LMIS is a job matching facility that offers free online and offline services to employers and jobseekers to include résumé writing, interview preparation, entrepreneur workshops and access to a database of skilled workers.

It has three components: the Electronic Labour Exchange, the Skills Bank and the Labour Market Intelligence.