Career fair events are highly popular in the eyes of
both employers and potential job seekers. To support the recruitment,
application, and networking process, career fairs and training expos are
held all over the world in various locations. This is a resourceful way to meet
the needs of both employers and potential job seekers. Employers meet, inform
and interview hundreds of potential applicants, while job seekers get the
chance to ask questions, talk up their skills and make important connections.
Basically, finding a job can be a challenge for youth. They
must determine what careers are available, what their interests are, and what
skills they have or need to develop. Numerous resources are available to help
youth get a sense of their interest and skills as well as gain employment
experience and learn about employment opportunities. It’s an event where these
target group can explore careers in a whole new way, getting involved in career
workshops and exploring exhibits. Job seekers, school leavers can speak to all
kinds of employers who can’t wait to tell you more about what you could do if
you joined them. The employers at careers fairs are nearly always very
youth-friendly with all kinds of apprenticeships, graduate schemes and starter
jobs on offer that could lead to a big, bright future!
National Huma Resources Development Council of Sri Lanka
(NHRDC) has been conducting career fair and career motivation programmes with
regards to these basic objectives respectively;
u Introduce prospective employers to our dropout
students and youths.
u Expose students and youth to entrepreneurial project
sponsors.
u Initiate the networking process between prospective
students, youths and prospective employers.
u Allow students and youths to experience real
interviews.
u Showcase youths' & students' skills and
competencies to employers and project sponsors.
u Facilitate the opportunities for our youths and
students to gain employment.
u Stimulate youths' interest in career building
possibilities.
So these programmes through these objectives, focus on
reduce the number of unemployed, Facilitate job seekers to find work according
to their professionalism, skills, talents and interests, helping the company to
get qualified workforce, professional as per company requirement etc.
Major challenge for labour shortage in Sri
Lanka
Labour shortage is one of the major challenge is facing by
leading sectors in Sri Lanka. National Human Resources Development
Council of Sri Lanka has been conducting Career Fair and Career Motivation
Programme for youth, job seekers and school leavers with collaboration with
Public and Private sector representatives in 2018
Strategically located in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka is a
‘gateway’ to South Asian markets with a population of approximately 1.9 billion
people. With a workforce of around 8.2 million, our nation is blessed with a
high literacy rate of 97%. The computer literacy rate is around
29%. Mr.Kanishka, CEO (EFC) said.
Even though, while the industry suffers from severe labour
shortage such as tourism, construction, garment, plantation, ICT and services,
one out of every five Sri Lankan youth remains unemployed: (Table 1 - Number of
Unemployment and Unemployment rate by age group and gender – Second quarter
2017). A large number of youth are neither in education nor in
employment. The amount of neither in education nor in employment more than
doubles from 16 per cent to 37 per cent from 15 year olds to 24 year
olds. Although they spend more time in education, the educational outcomes
of youth are not satisfactory. Of the 25-29 year olds, only 8 per
cent obtained a degree or a higher level of education. The rest did not have
tertiary level qualifications.
As you all know, today there are about eight million people
reported as employed, unemployment rate is as low as 4.6 per cent; it is just
about 372,000. Although, one of the biggest challenge that Employers are
faced with today is finding workers for their business. Now there are thousands
of workers from China and India, while the opportunities are opening up to
recruit labour from Nepal and Myanmar as well. Another issue is statistics show
that the population above the age of 60 years was 2.5 million in 2012 which is
12.5% of the total population whereas projection shows that Sri Lanka would
have elderly population of about 3.6 million by 2021, which is 16.7% of the
total population and by 2041, one-quarter of the population would be elderly.
“National labor force will be further burdened with the
outward migration of young local talents and once if the existing Sri Lanka’s
low level of female labor force participation is continued. Furthermore,
statistics shows that the labor force participation of the Sri Lankan elderly
population also remains low.” Author LBO said.
The way forward
Every year about 47% of them are exiting from general
education and TVEC system. These drop out students mostly enter into the
unskilled labour forces such us Middle East migration, three wheel driving and
etc. So, NHRDC is undertaking many activities through many programme to
addressing the issues and solutions such as Human Resources Summit, industrial
forums, policy development and career fair and career motivation programme etc.
This programme developed based on the public and private sector
collaboration to find a job, building skills & enrolment for job market of
young job seekers.
The focus is on sharing information between companies,
training providers and job seekers. It is a way to explore career opportunities
within a variety of companies at one location. These Career Fairs organized to
creates youth access to corporate internships, job placement, and career
information and also it provides opportunities for relationship building
between young people and corporations.
A large number of unemployed youth turned up at these career
fair, which witnessed the participation of around 50 reputed companies and
vocational institutions. These programmes targeted the school leavers, young
job seekers and graduates etc. The outcome of these programmes are directly
aware and connected with industries over 3500 young job seekers from five
districts. Out of that, about 700 school leavers and youth have registered for
skills training as well as its about 529 people got job opportunities through
this programmes.
In addition, it’s about 10,000 people aware indirectly
and this programme changed the mind set of this target group toward the future
ready workforce in Sri Lanka.
These programmes organized in association with many
stake holders such as TVEC, Ministry of education, Department of manpower
and employment, Employer’s Federation of Ceylon, Chamber of commerce and
district secretariat and industrial representatives from various backgrounds
like Textiles & Garments, Auto Mobile, Hotel & Tourism, Information
& Communication Technology, Construction, Food technology and Electronic
& Tele Communication Engineering.
In conclusion, participants at these programmes learned
about staffing patterns, job demands, employer requirements and post-secondary
programs available from vocational training providers.
We hope organizing such job fairs on a regular basis will
help the educated youth to find jobs in reputed firms across the country.
TODAY, we raise awareness with youth. TOMORROW, we have a stronger
& knowledgeable workforce pipeline. It's a long-term investment and
it's up to us to plant the seed.
Reference
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