Colombo, 20 April, (Asiantribune.com):JobsNet was set up in an effort to promote employment opportunities and act as an information referral system primarily with regard to job opportunities for Sri Lankans either in the island or overseas. As any modern Employment Services Delivery system would do, it is invariable that we also provide referrals for Training and Education as well, especially for the want of employable skills in most of our job seeking youth, is the view of Mark Vansteenkiste, Project Advisor, JobsNet at the ILO's Colombo office.

He said the reasons for the inability to match available jobs with those seeking jobs could be due to many job seekers are in the lowest level, freshers or who are unemployed more than six months. The JobsNet which commenced its activities in 2003 May with a website to refer the job seekers to prospective employers who has vacancies but unable to match them. The list of job seekers has been so swelled to 143,268 while it has registered 180,000 jobs as available.

Yet the JobsNet could match only 10 percent of the number. There is no way of comparing whether the exercise of the JobsNet is successful or not, as such matching was not planned earlier in Sri Lanka.

Vansteenkiste said employment sourcing and delivery system is a referral system, facilitating information in/outflow from jobseekers to employers and vice-versa, both locally and internationally, benefiting Sri Lanka/Sri Lankans. A clear distinction is made between employment creation and employment promotion. It is often confused by certain parties that JobsNet is responsible for employment creation, however, we are proud to state that we are now actively involved in employment creation work also through different extension progammes.

JobsNet limits itself to promote vacancies to jobseekers and jobseekers to employers. However the choice of being selected/recruited is beyond the control, which is a decision between the potential recruit and the employer.

Though the progress achieved so far is not that much, but all the stakeholders, Employers Federation, Trade Unions, Federation of Chambers and the government have all agreed in principle that JobsNet should continue.

The difficulty of matching the vacancies with the jobseekers arise in such cases like, people who apply for a position of heavy vehicle driver, would have the license only to drive light vehicles and sometimes with no experience too. A fresher just after his school career with only basic qualifications would apply for a position of an accounts clerk which would require training.

Around 48 percent of the Job seekers are Advanced Level qualified, but when they apply for jobs they are mostly freshers with lack experience. Around 17 percent of them are Ordinary Level qualified and around 14 percent are either basic degree holders or higher qualifications. The fact is that even the degree holders in most cases are unemployable as they lack experience in the jobs they apply.

Attitudes of some of the jobseekers also have created problems that have to be simmered down by extensive counseling. Counseling has managed to pursue some fo these hard cases. Most of them are also with a rural backdrop and the JobsNet became completely inoperative almost in the entire coastal line for more than six months due to Tsunami.

Another problem is that though qualified, those least experienced would request jobs inside offices, and some are reluctant to accept jobs in the field.

There is also influence by the parents and friends. In one case where two youth applied for certain jobs in one organization, faced the interviews and though one was selected he declined to accept the position as his friend did not get the job.

This prominent draw back of attitudes by the job seekers, while could be changed by counseling, the employer should take steps towards providing decent working conditions and a salary appropriate to the job description. These employers used to flout the law as specified payments for extra hours are not paid. About 40 percent seek government jobs.

Since the inception of JobsNet its activities were carried out as a funded establishment but in future it would be operated as a self sustained limited liability company. The annual budget for the programme has been Rs 40 million. But the completion of the first phase saw that it has recovered 30 percent of the funds spent.

Vansteenkiste said that the 30 percent of expenditure has been recovered by charging the employers for the services provided to them by the JobsNet. Further, website advertising, conducting of seminars, workshops for UN and various other organizations also provide income for the JobsNet. They do the sourcing. The quantum of charge depends on each case. It may be one month's salary that would be paid to the recruiters. But all the services provided to the job seeker is of free of charge.

Employers are branded into various categories such as platinum members who would have to pay an annual fee of around Rs 150,000 to Rs 200,000. Likewise there are other members like gold and silver. There are more than 10 platinum members and 400 other types of members. It has served more than 4,500 one-off services to companies.

The other area of job placement that the JobsNet would embark in the future is to involve in the foreign job market in a very big way and hope to net in a large amount of income. But in this case too the services rendered to the job seeker are free of charge. To promote foreign jobs JobsNet would have to obtain a license from the Foreign Employment Bureau. But they could operate directly through website.

The project would be continued as a tripartite programme with the participation of private sector, the Ministry and the Trade Unions, but would be run as an independent private sector model.

The project has been jointly managed by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry Labor and Employment. The funding for the programme comes through Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) provides technical support in management and administration.

He said what is happening is that the majority of the job seekers are rural youth, though educated they do not acquire an elite Colombo big school type of attitude. JobsNet is trying to push these rural youth to get a sufficient background to adapt to match such situation.

There is serious concern over certain private sector companies where recruits would be asked to work over and above the statutory working hours and compelling them to work overtime and in many instances the extra work has not been properly compensated or not compensated at all. These recruits would not mind working on extra hours as long as they are properly and adequately compensated. There have been instances where no proper safety standards have been followed.

If there are people who wants to be self employed, the JobsNet would provide them sufficient training and also could refer them to micro financing as there could be a lot in the agricultural sector. He said food processing would need a lot of training as there are so much of international quality standards constraints.

He said the activities of the JobsNet would be fully transparent and intend to carry on without any tax-payers money. All the plans are in place for the new phase and are now expected the agreement of the stakeholders. Vansteenkiste said "Essentially the work would continue, but would offer better and faster service."

JobsNet is now actively involved in employment creation too through different extension programmes. He said that JobsNet is building up confidence of the private sector due to the trust that the system has been devoid of any politicization and undue influence. They are also winning the same confidence from the job seekers too.

Since the early days of the project it has been identified that a large proportion of the jobseekers require further training or skills enhancement in order to make them more employable. JobsNet continuous to actively support this area through established links with Private training institutions and existing public training institutions network. There are 23 such skills areas identified with over 30,000 identified for training.

Having re-established the mismatch of skills against the labor market demands, JobsNet increased its Career Guidance and counseling services through 2004 and 2005. Over 700 such programmes were conducted, helping improve the number of referrals and successful recruitments and over 12,000 have been identified over the years for Career Guidance. Over 8,000 jobseekers have benefited through these programmes.

He said that modern employment services are a requirement for Sri Lanka or for any nation attempting to mitigate employment. Private sector requires good quality employable people who can create a positive impact on their businesses. The reason for the skills mismatch to prevail for so long in this country is the lack of management information which is available for policy makers of related areas and educationalists, and isolated efforts by different parties both of Government and Non-government nature through making attempts to deliver Employment Services and create a link between education and the work.

- Asian Tribune -