Benefits
Who will benefit from the LMO
- Planners will be able to identify areas of where skill needs are in highest demand and how to target resources at these areas. In addition, the LMO will also enable planners to monitor process of policies towards defined objectives, including feed-back on when difficulties are being experienced during implementation and what action needs to be taken in order to rectify the situation. The LMO can also undertake impact evaluations or feasibility studies to provide politicians and planners with information about the impact or potential impact of a certain policy.
- Institutional managers will have an improved understanding of the nature and extent of demand for skills. This will help institutions determine which programmes of study should be expanded in the near future and which ones should be cut back. In addition, the LMO could also share international best practice with institutions, particularly with regard to issue such as industry-education links and what mechanisms are being used for cost recovery in other countries.
- Employers will want to have timely and accurate information about labour market for investment purposes. For example, the availability of skills in a specific geographical environment, combined with an enabling business environment, are important factors influencing inward investment. In many countries good market intelligence is used as a means of attracting inward investment. Besides foreign investment, the LMO can work with local businesses to help ensure projects have the appropriate quality and quantity of skills to achieve their objectives.
- Unions would find LMO information useful for bargaining purposes. For instance, they would want to know average wage levels for specific occupations in different industrial sectors. Similarly, unions would also want to have information about the number of work permits issued, the type of skills covered by these work permits and information on the number of accidents that occur in the workplace. All of this information would be used to improve the working conditions of their members.
- Community groups would also want to obtain information about local skill requirements and opportunities, particularly for vulnerable groups and those who have difficulty accessing the labour market. This will provide them with the means of obtaining information on how to improve their life circumstances and become productive citizens.
- Students and young people would also want to have improved information about career prospects. They would want to know which programmes of study are most likely to result in productive employment. Young people are also interested in knowing what type of careers they could follow if they enrolled for a particular program of study. It is not always possible to provide an exact correlation between subject studied and type of employment, but it is possible to signal which types of programs of study are likely to lead to successful careers and which are not.
- Job seekers will be also be able to discover employment opportunities through the labour market observatory website. They will be able to view available vacancies from the job market as posted by employers and will react by posting resumes and applying for the jobs on-line.