Government to mine jobs data from website

 

Private sector lobbies have signed up with the Government’s job matching portal to make it easier to get workers.

According to Labour Cabinet Secretary Phyllis Kandie, Kenya Private Sector Alliance, Kenya Association of Manufacturers, universities and National Industrial Training Authority are on board.

The Government lacks basic numbers on employment, skills gap and a way of determining demand driven training which makes it difficult to formulate policy. “The ministry is supposed to give data from an informed position and people at the Treasury need this information to decide which sectors to incentivise,” CS Kandie said.

In July, the Government launched the portal with data on the country’s labour force hoping to help investors identify talent and match job seekers with opportunities available in the country. The portal, which will allow employers put up job offers for free is part of the Government’s move to create 1.3 million jobs annually.

The data will also help learners plan and identify what professions are being sought to make the right career choices. “We want to avoid a case where we have an oversupply in certain fields and critical shortages in others,” Kandie said.

The CS also added that the data would help the Government identify skills gap while providing an edge for Kenya to be more competitive globally since investors will have no difficulty getting top talent. “Kenyan labour force is highly skilled but expensive than some of our neighbours so to be competitive we need to train based on market demand,” she said.