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Labour Exchange Centre has to tick
2008-01-14 08:43:14
By Editor
The government has advised job seekers and employers in need of quality staff to visit the Labour Exchange Centre (LEC), which it said has abundant invaluable information on job vacancies and demand for the same.
Labour, Employment and Youth Development minister John Chiligati gave the advice in an interview with this paper last week.
He was surprised seeing that, while the information at the centre was of immense use to those it was meant to benefit and most of it was open to the public, very few people in need of employment went for it.
That there should be such negligible effective demand for such invaluable information surely defies explanation, although one could hazard one or two guesses as to why there is such a puzzling scenario.
LEC was set up in Dar es Salaam in 2000 as a government agency that would primarily help out the jobless, people seeking alternative employment, employers and other interested parties.
It has since opened a branch in Mwanza, with recent media reports suggesting that Arusha and Mbeya could also be having branches any of these days.
Could it then be that, seven long years since its birth, the centre has been too constrained by its being based in Dar es Salaam to have enough impact at the national level - and hence its belated decision to branch out?
Or could it be that the information it has in stock is not as relevant, useful or current as LEC itself believes it is or as the people and institutions it is intended to serve would want it to be?
It is, meanwhile, understood that there exist a number of private agencies in Dar es Salaam and elsewhere set up for the express aim of offering the same or nearly the same consultancy, advisory and other services as the centre is there to offer.
Could it be that the competition is too cutthroat for this autonomous agency under the Labour ministry to live up to popular expectations?
The centre was established with financial and technical support from the United States government but the programme under which the assistance used to be extended has since run its course.
Could it be that the development has made the centre fail to sustain itself and therefore lose the capacity to impress and attract its `clientele`?
Minister Chiligati and officials of both his ministry and LEC insist that the centre has not become a white elephant.
They still look at it as a dependable database for anyone in need of reliable labour and employment-related information and guidance.
They could well be right, particularly given the natural `proximity` the Labour ministry and its affiliates have to the harsh realities of unemployment in the country - notably among the youth.
But it is the way they will use that edge over private employment advisory agencies that will make or break LEC and the efforts by the government to combat joblessness and the various problems it commonly causes or precipitates.
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