ILO provided Skills need anticipation and matching training in Ethiopia

21 October 2021; Addis Ababa; Ethiopia: (News) The International Labour Organization, under global program on skills & lifelong learning (GPSL3) – Ethiopia, has conducted a three-day long Skills need anticipation and matching training at Hawasa, Sidama regional state in Ethiopia from 19-21 October 2021.

Article | 03 November 2021
With the attendance of more than 40 participants, drown from regional bureau of Labour & social affairs, workers, and employers’ representatives as well as regional sectoral associations, public employment services, Universities, partners working around TVET & skills development in Sidama & Southern Nations, Nationalities & People region.
With the general objective of helping participants to understand the central importance of identifying current and future skill needs as well as labour market imbalances in a broader policy framework, the training outlines, rationale for skills needs anticipation & matching, methodologies for anticipating skills needs, analysis of labour market data, roles of different actors and translation into policy & practice.
Speaking at the opening remark, Mr. Albert, Okal, Regional forced displacement skills and employment Specialist underlined that the training is an essential platform for knowledge sharing as skills development is critical to increase employment opportunity by increasing investments & capability of individuals.
During the three days training, concepts & definitions, drivers of change, myths and realities about skills needs anticipation, basic principles of skills need anticipation and matching as well as national & sub-national and sector-wide approaches for skills anticipation needs in the world of work have been covered among many others.
In his reflection after the training, Mr. Wondwossen Jenere (PhD) from Arbaminch University said “I am very glad to participate in this training, the training address the very important issues of the country – we need to know & best understand what we lack & what we do in the future around skills mismatch - the real causes & develop a possible solution for policy recommendation. “
“As an institution, Universities are producers of graduates in different fields of study, therefore; from this training, we have learnt that we have to encourage our students on how to assess the labour market information and balance by considering the market demand from the employer side as well as to conduct the tracer study to identify the market demand for our future graduates.”
“I do have a due respect to the ILO for bringing this agenda for stakeholders & expand it to the regional level. It is motivating us to deeply think about it.” Concluded Wondwossen.

Mr. Jayasimha.N, from Hawassa Industrial Park, HR and Compliance Manger on his part said, the training is useful, and we’ve understood a lot of things in three days.
“Skill mismatch can be found everywhere, we don’t know the right person, where they are, therefore if we practically apply what we have learned in our organization, analysing skill mismatch using the labour market information system, then the recruitment process becomes quite easy. Implementing what we got may not be easy, but through time it will be important in our future planning in our organization. “
“ILO has done a great job, after this training, both employers and workers will have a good future over the industrial relations as identifying the real skilled producers will gets the jobs that they will benefited. Concludes Jayasimha.N.
The ILO is implementing the global programme on skills and lifelong learning (GPSL3) – Ethiopia component, funded by Norwegian Development cooperation Agency (NoRAD). The project aims to work on addressing skills mismatches and anticipating future skills demand and tracing the employment results on skills interventions in an effective way. The GPSL3 deliver an innovative skill development programme in countries including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana, Malawi and Senegal. Furthermore, the projects aim is to support Ethiopia’s agenda of social and economic development by strengthening the capacity of the country’s skills development system to become market-driven and more inclusive and to integrate skills policies with national development and sectoral strategies to contribute to export growth, economic diversification, and decent employment creation.