12 Oct 2022

The Labour Market Observatory governing body, a platform for providing insight, intelligence and policy advice on employment issues, was launched in Gaborone Tuesday.

Its other functions include, providing for exchange of ideas and experiences, aggregating and ensuring accessibility of comparable labour market data, fostering strong institutional linkages as well as informing the development and implementation of national policies and strategies.

Speaking at the launch, Vice President Slumber Tsogwane said under coordination of Human Resource Development Council, the body would among others, advise government on trends concerning labour supply and demand, investigate education, training, labour and employment mismatches.

He said digitalization and automation had resulted in low demand of labour in certain sectors of the economy, making it necessary to encourage digital literacy so that no one was left behind.

“In Botswana, we experienced low demand in the tourism as compared to the health sector, agriculture and service sectors. It is necessary to provide intelligence to help us identify areas that have potential demand and reallocate skills across new occupations and sectors,” stated Mr Tsogwane.

The vice president said the body would be a valuable source of labour market information with regard to the availability of skills in the economy.

“Both local and foreign investors, employers will be able to effectively determine how easy or difficult it is to find new employees and how to best direct recruitment efforts when armed with information on how many people are qualified for certain types of work,” he said.

 Mr Tsogwane said the expectation was that the body would determine the direction and priorities of the labour market to the attainment of Vision 2036 ideals, National Employment Policy and Economic Recovery and Transformation Programme as well as the Reset Agenda.

Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr Douglas Letsholathebe said the launch theme; Building of Labour Market Intelligence for Effective Implementation of Education and Employment Policies, was carefully chosen.

It was meant to highlight the current challenges and tasks that must be undertaken if government was to successfully confront the threefold challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality plaguing the country, he said.

Dr Letsholathebe said there was need to ensure that the skills produced currently and in future would not only grow and develop the economy, but give young people the capacity to meaningfully contribute and build a better future.

“It is quite evident that our country requires critical skills to enable citizens to participate in the new world order of work within the dictates of the 21st century and to support the economic recovery efforts from the negative impact of COVID-19,” stated the minister.

He said lessons from COVID-19 pandemic dictated that countries move swiftly to adopt technology and move into the 4th Industrial Revolution.

The move must include accelerated training and skills development to keep up with the pace of change, Minister Letsholathebe said.

He noted that currently jobs considered as vocational were now becoming high tech and required specialised knowledge and skills.

“The skills for the 21st century must be aligned with the dictates of the changing world of work shaped by realities of automation, artificial intelligence and robotics,” said Dr Letsholathebe. Ends