Official Launch of the St. Vincent & the Grenadines Labour Market Information System (LMIS)

Sean Mathurin

(OECS Secretariat, Castries, St. Lucia, Wednesday April 27th 2011) The Department of Labour of St. Vincent and the Grenadines will formally launch a Labour Market Information System (LMIS) Website and its system of computerised administrative records on Thursday 28th April 2011.

This project was implemented with the technical support of the ILO’s Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean and financial support from The Caribbean Centre for Development Administration (CARICAD). It complements the ongoing implementation of the OECS-wide Labour Market Information Systems (LMIS) Programme.

The objective of the Department of Labour component of the OECS LMIS programme is to first of all ensure that income, employment and industrial relations indicators are available for economic and social analysis and policymaking, monitoring policy implementation and assessing the OECS region’s development performance. In addition, the aim is also to have clarity about the role and mandate of the Department of Labour, establish the organisational and human resource capabilities required to maintain an integrated, computerised system of Labour Administrative Records and produce a set of key labour and employment statistics from these records.

Sean Curtis Mathurin at the OECS Secretariat says: “A functioning OECS LMIS will support strategies designed to address issues within the OECS Economic Union such as: The challenge of increasing productivity and competitiveness; Monitoring occupational wages and labour costs; Shifts in employment; Unemployment and underemployment; Mobilizing and developing human resources.”

This information system will establish selected labour administrative procedures and standardise computer-aided record keeping. This will facilitate and support technical procedures, reporting and the compilation of statistics, thereby contributing significantly to the body of economic and social data and information necessary to implement and properly manage the OECS Economic Union as a whole. The system will be particularly relevant to the specific provisions allowing for free movement of people, which the OECS Heads of Government have agreed should be in full effect by 1st August 2011. Importantly, the launch sets the stage for the OECS Secretariat and the ILO to continue working to roll out the system to the other OECS countries, thereby contributing to the creation of a more integrated labour market in the Economic Union.