As intricate as the name ‘LMIS.Stat’may sound to the novice, it is quite befitting this innovative tool, which has the official statistics community raving about its obvious advantages and relevance to policy-making.

Let us unpack ‘LMIS.Stat’.

LMIS refers to Labour Market Information System*. For countries with a functioning LMIS, the main purpose of such a system is the production, storage, and dissemination of information and analysis for policy-makers and other labour market stakeholders. The timely identification of labour market issues critically rests on the LMIS, and so does the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of employment and labour market policies.

A LMIS relies on the co-presence of four elements that must function well together: (i) quantitative and qualitative data and information that are collected and compiled; (ii) a place where data are stored and through which they can be disseminated; (iii) analytical capacities and tools that make use of the data and information to inform policies; and, (iv) adequate institutional arrangements among all parties involved to ensure the flow of information and a constructive dialogue on what data to produce and for what purposes.

As part of its broader strategy to improve the functioning of the labour market, the Montenegrin Government is committed to use all available and up-to-date information in order to improve the design and the targeting of its policies. As a step forward in the direction of establishing a functioning LMIS, the Council of Ministers deliberated in 2018 that several institutions should be involved and actively engage in the process. In March 2019, Kemal Purišić, Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, on behalf of the Government of Montenegro and Heinz Koller, Assistant Director General and Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia on behalf of ILO signed a memorandum of understanding to enable the installation and operationalization of LMIS.Stat. The Ministry plays a leadership role within this truly cross-institutional cooperation, with several line ministries and government institutions assigned to specific roles and responsibilities within the LMIS.



LMIS.Stat is the cutting-edge storage and dissemination tool for labour market information. It is one of many possible interfaces of ‘.Stat’, a statistical data warehouse system maintained by the Statistical Information Systems – Collaboration Community (SIS-CC), an initiative led by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and constituted by several national and international organizations. The ILO, the OECD and the SIS-CC have agreed that the ILO can provide LMIS.Stat free of charge to its member States that implement a LMIS according to ILO’s recommendations. Moreover, the ILO provides first level support and free upgrades.

[The image below presents in a schematic way the 4 inter-connected dimensions of a functioning LMIS]


 

Two activities have already taken place in Montenegro through this collaboration with the ILO. IT and data managers from several institutions are involved in these trainings as much as statisticians and data analysts. Representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, the Employment Agency, the National Statistical Office (MONSTAT), and the Ministry of Public Administration have engaged in thorough discussions on the architecture of the system, its configuration and adaptation to the circumstances of Montenegro, as well as management of data, metadata classification, and selection and harmonization of indicators.

Ultimately, the Montenegrin institutions aspire to have all the indicators needed for an adequate labour market analysis stored and accessible in a single repository (LMIS.Stat). It is also intended to reduce the time required to make labour market indicators available to institutions, the social partners, and the public. Through the close interaction with the ILO, LMIS stakeholders simultaneously gain access to global standard protocols and good practices for this sector, such as Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX), Generic Statistics Business Process Model (GSBPM), and OpenData.

For the Montenegrin Government, a functioning LMIS would resolve some of the data limitations that the country currently faces and would provide solid basis for monitoring and reporting on employment and labour policies, particularly in the context of achieving the conditions set out in Chapter 19 of the EU accession agenda. Further investments in analytical capacities and suitable cooperation arrangements among institutions are in order: the ILO stands ready to support and to facilitate access to knowledge and international good practices.


*The generally accepted definition of LMIS reads: “An LMIS is a network of institutions, persons and information that have mutually recognized roles, agreements and functions with respect to the production, storage, dissemination and use of labour market related information and results in order to maximise the potential for relevant and applicable policy and programme formulation and implementation”. However, in this article we take a more teleological approach and focus on the purpose of the LMIS.