Labour

Introduction

Labour market is a mechanism for bringing buyers of labour (employers) and sellers of labour (workers) together. The buyers of labour represent the demand side of labour on the other hand the sellers of labour represent the supply side of labour. With reference to this, the status of the labour market will be illustrated based on certain concerns of both the demand and supply side of labour in the country. The demand side of labour includes the following: Occupation classification data, Vacancies, Wages statistics, Labour productivity, Birth and death of companies, Redundancies, Job projections and Skill gap. The labour supply side includes: Information on training/ academic programs, Skills data, Number of graduates produced in various fields per year and Number of higher education institutions.

Administrative data collected by all major producers of LMI include the following:

* Labour inspections

* Union representation

* Data from Occupation Associations

Labour Market Information Systems (LMIS) In Zambia

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security has started the process of strengthening its LMIS. LMIS is simply a mechanism for capturing, processing, storing, analysing and disseminating Labour market information for career, business and policy decision making. Labour market information is the data about the supply and demand for labour in the market.

It is the role of the government to make sure that reliable and relevant information such with regard to this is available. Also it must ensure that the information is properly disseminated for the improvement of the markets efficiency. There is the need for public agencies to convert or transform the gathered data into useful intelligence.

The government could assist the labour market through a better matching of skills and employment opportunities. Such an improvement could in turn lead to less frictional and structural types of unemployment, increased output, economic growth, and...