RESUSCITATION of the Labour Market Coordinating Committee has brought labour market information back on the front- burner in Guyana.A Ministry of Social Protection release has said the committee was resuscitated last Thursday, and Deputy Permanent Secretary Adrian Ramrattan said regular intelligence from a Labour Market Information System (LMIS) will reduce the labour information deficit; help to formulate, monitor and evaluate government policies; and minimise job-search costs by improving information flows between the demand and supply of labour.

Ramrattan outlined the benefits accrued with LMIS intelligence. “If people do not have information about job openings, they may stay unemployed. If people do not have information about professions, they may choose a profession where there is no demand for workers. If more persons find jobs, their incomes increase, and therefore the general well-being of the society increases. If more persons make the right job choice and companies get the right workers, productivity increases.”

Labour information is used by governments to help inform their policy decisions; is exploited by the private sector to increase competitiveness of employers and employees; and assists students to fine-tune decisions about their careers.

Ministry of Finance official Eileen Quamina was happy. “I am glad the committee is being resuscitated. A lot of work went into moving Guyana from Category Three to Two, and it disappeared into thin air. It is good that we can now put in the effort and got to Category Two,” Quamina said.

The committee falls under the purview of the Statistical Unit of the Ministry of Social Protection, and comprises a wide membership of government, private and autonomous agencies, including the ministries of Education, Finance, and Business; the University of Guyana; the National Insurance Scheme; the Bureau of Statistics; and several departments of the Ministry of Social Protection, including the Central Recruitment and Manpower Agency and the Board of Industrial Training.

It was initially formed in 1999 with support from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and functioned under the guidance of Lennox Benjamin, Chief Statistician at the Bureau of Statistics. The committee set out to put arrangements in place to promote statisticians from Category Three to Category Two, which would have brought the country to a level of more updated, relevant and timely reports and data about the labour force.

Chief Statistical Officer at the Ministry of Social Protection Ivelaw Henry, said the committee’s work would include crafting a medium-term work programme to arrive at the intended category, and to recreate partnerships and strengthen the existing network to improve data collection, processing and analysis. He explained that the data to be collected will be fed into the Labour Market Information System, which is a system to collect, store, retrieve and disseminate labour market information in a timely manner.

At present, the ministry regularly conducts Occupational Wages and Hours of Work Surveys and the Skills Need surveys, among others, but these are insufficient to generate the data necessary for decision making.

Underscoring the importance of analyzing the labour force, Mr. Ian Manifold, Head of the Surveys Department of the Bureau of Statistics, said that while surveys conducted by that Bureau would seek information about the labour force, that information is generally vague and lacks the details to give sufficient analysis. One such survey is the 2012 Census, the disaggregated data of which will hopefully be released soon.

He also opined that, generally, a major challenge to generating labour force statistics has been the unavailability of data, and he expressed optimism that, this time around, the committee would have greater success in moving Guyana higher on the statistically-equipped ladder.

“Hopefully, more of what is required is there, so we can do a better job…a Labour Market Information System can tell you where are the jobs, or which occupation has the most prospects, which is helpful for career guidance…. The government is the major planner in the economy, and with such information, the government can formulate policies, determine training needs, estimate working life of the population, and so on,” he explained.

Minister in the Ministry of Social Protection Simona Broomes, supports the resuscitated committee. She has noted that its Terms of Reference include establishment of new sources of data and assessment of human resources needs and development.

“These are, to my mind, the two main areas; and I charge you today to not lose sight of your focus, but to ensure that, at the end of the process, Guyana will proudly declare that it has relevant labour-related statistics….

“You should be reminded that the public needs to be informed, and this can be done through the availability of up-to-date statistics on labour-related issues,” Broomes said.

She is pleased that the committee will produce a status report by December, and she has urged the committee to embrace the role of technology in its work. Two key responsibilities of the committee are to advise the Minister of Social Protection on issues pertaining to the labour market, and to promote reform in the area.