Thursday Nov 28, 2024
Thursday Nov 28, 2024
Monday, 21 December 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The National Centre of the Public Employment Services (NPES) was ceremonially declared open by Minister of Labour and Trade Union Relations W.D.J. Seneviratne and State Minister of Labour and Trade Unions Relations Ravindra Samaraweera in the presence of Ministry of Labour and Trade Union Relations Secretary Gotabaya Jayaratne, ILO Country Office for Sri Lanka and the Maldives Country Director Donglin Li and Department of Manpower and Employment at Sethsiripaya Stage II, Battaramulla Director General H.G.G.J. Dharmasena, on 15 December.
The ILO Country Office for Sri Lanka and the Maldives is supporting the Ministry of Labour and the Department of Manpower and Employment through a multidimensional youth targeted strategy aimed at strengthening the capacity of staff on employment services operations, activation programs and labour rights and responsibilities, upgrading the IT platform of the Department for carrying out job matching functions within public employment services and now, the support to open the National Centre of the Public Employment Services.
The National Centre responds to two main objectives. On the one hand it will serve as the unit coordinating the action of district centres focusing on improved matching of labour demand and labour supply. On the other hand, it will be the organisational entity in charge of designing, implementing, monitoring and coordinating nationwide employment and active labour market programmes helping the most vulnerable labour force.
Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne highlighted how this initiative fits perfectly into the goal and target of the current government of creating ‘One Million Jobs’ within the next five years and thanked ILO for collaborating with the ministry in expanding the network of PES centres island-wide.
State Minister R. Samaraweera emphasised how this centre should become actively engaged in facilitating the dialogue with Employers and Chambers, catering for all the job seekers, irrespectively of their profile.
In his address, Donglin Li stressed that the main development issue globally and in the newly approved Sustainable Development Goals is job creation for youth. ILO through its projects in Sri Lanka addresses the issue in a number of ways, by supporting direct job creation but also by strengthening the capacity of state actors to correct imbalances in the labour markets through sound intermediation and implementation of active labour market policies.
