Centralised database can aid job creation � Expert
Isaac Pinielo | Thursday October 22, 2015 18:00
A centralised database stores and maintains data in a single location.
Giving a presentation at the Botswana Jobs Summit that was held in Gaborone this week, Mutelo explained that this is where all the statistics of employment can be monitored and evaluated.
So, lack of employment data can be a huge hindrance to job creation. Mutelo said data centralisation was the most effective and common way to integrate employment data on a central location.
“With data centralisation it will be easy to monitor and evaluate the number of unemployed persons and the number of those employed,” said Mutelo.
He stated that the lack of data centralisation leads to fragmentation of data, which might distort the picture of unemployment in Botswana.
He said if Botswana embraced the data centralisation, it would see improved efficiencies.
In 2013, government launched a labour market observatory, which was a network of people who observe what is going on in the labour market.
They use information from the Labour Market Information System (LMIS) to develop policy about the labour market in particular to reduce unemployment and to ensure that the mismatch between skills supplied by institutions and skills demanded by the industry was minimised as much as possible.
The need for a labour market observatory, as indicated on the website, emanated from the fact that labour market data was not well coordinated and harmonised.
The observation is that although Statistics Botswana (SB) is mandated to provide data, there are several other little pockets of labour market information that are scattered in various organisations.
It is this information, together with that from SB that the labour market observatory will be coordinating and harmonising to enhance complementarities among the various key players in the labour market.