Stratgies to Reduce Unemployment: Promoting Relations Between Public and Private Employment Services

Stratgies to Reduce Unemployment: Promoting Relations Between Public and Private Employment Services - Mexico

Paper: Creation of guidelines and development of strategies in public employment services, in order to establish better links and contacts between agents in the job market and private employment services, and to provide job-seekers and employers with better services. Experience and better practices.

Public Employment Services must constitute the cornerstone entities in the mediation between employment demand and supply, and even more so at the present day, living as we do against the backdrop of a changeable and unpredictable job market and economic situation. Such mediation means not only canalising unemployed persons to specific jobs but also orienting and training them to enable them to find work in the best possible conditions.

The mission and functions of these public job mediation offices must be to satisfy the needs of their "customers", i.e. job-seekers and the companies seeking staff. They cannot however work alone since this is a mammoth task: public employment services must constantly generate synergies, i.e. get as many agents involved as possible and design and implement associated activities so that objectives and actions will complement each other and enable better results to be obtained at lower costs, whilst reflecting a permanently dynamic and vital image.

The Experience of Mexico: The National Employment Service and Job Market Link Programmes

The National Employment Service (NES), operated by the Labour and Social Benefit Secretariat (LSBS) of Mexico, promotes the finding of jobs for the unemployed and underemployed population of Mexico, and strengthens a range of programmes to increase their employment skills and abilities.

This service, which was created in 1978, seeks to facilitate the links between the unemployed and underemployed population and the vacancies to be filled in companies. It also implements job training schemes and coordinates a system providing information about local and regional job markets. Its activities focus not only on providing personal attention for job-seekers in the more than one hundred offices situated in the 31 states of the Republic of Mexico and the Distrito Federal area, but also on promoting activities such as the organisation of job fairs, which are of particular benefit to young, first-time job seekers, and workshops for job-seekers that provide guidance to help the unemployed and underemployed search adequately for jobs.

Similarly, with a view to diversifying services and making them match the requirements of both those seeking and those offering jobs better, in 2000 Mexico designed the Chambatel Link-up System. It enables job-seekers to obtain information about vacancies by telephone and thereby facilitates the links between those offering and seeking jobs.

Another computerised link-up system aimed at fulfilling the same objective via internet known as Chambanet has also been designed, developed and implemented.

These two services are new link-up schemes also intended to enlarge NES coverage, and it must be said that highly satisfactory results are being obtained from their operations.

The Mexican government also backs programmes that enable human resources to acquire skills by means of suitable, quality training. One such scheme is Sicat, the job training system aimed at enabling the unemployed and underemployed to take short-term training courses. The aim is for persons of sixteen or more and who are in open unemployment, or are underemployed or temporarily out of a job to obtain the skills required by the economy.

These job-finding and training strategies are also aimed at heterogeneous groups of the population who have specific characteristics and certain disadvantages as regards entering the employment market, including for example, handicapped people, older adults, women wishing to go back to work, young people with no work experience, and the rural population.

Following the same line of satisfying the specific needs of the target population of public employment services in the best possible way, it is important to point out that new schemes were designed in 2001 including SAEBE (economic aid for job-seekers scheme) to provide the population forced out of the formal sector of the economy with economic aid to help reinsert them into productive activities.

Despite the foregoing, we do realise in Mexico that these efforts must be linked to those made by the other agents in the job market in order to achieve the job and training objectives proposed. In this respect, essential instruments have been established at state level (32 federal entities) that have made it possible to strengthen the coordinated activities aimed at understanding and governing how the job market operates, and likewise dealing with the specific requirements of those seeking and offering employment. To do so, the NES has Employment Executive Committees and State Employment Systems. These bodies channel the different interests of the agents of society involved in the job market (company representatives, employers' organisations and chambers, the education sector, employment and placement agencies, and public federal and state entities involved in the job market, amongst others) with a view to improving the transparency of the job market and increasing the links between the demand and supply of employment.

Executive committees were established with the aim of listening to and dealing with the opinions and needs of Employment Service users (basically job-seekers and employers) and providing guidance for their activities on the basis of the suggestions and recommendations arising from the agents that comprise them. The aim of executive committees is to structure and institutionalise the relations between the Employment Service and sectors of industry and education with all the agents involved in the job market, thereby constituting both an advisory scheme and a permanent coordination mechanism.

Executive Committees incorporate company representatives, chambers of commerce and employers' organisation, the education sector, and also private job centres and employment agencies. Their aim is to provide guidance for placement activities and the retraining of experience, abilities and skills. They also strengthen the links with other public state and federal entities involved in the job market. They help detect labour training needs; orient and promote the organisation of different types of training courses within the Sicat (job training scheme) framework and promote the organisation of job fairs.

The creation of SiEE (State Employment Systems) is yet another of the lines of work being promoted in all federal entities in Mexico. These systems are local operative entities in which company representatives, chambers of commerce, private placement agencies, employment agencies, training centres and the Employment Service itself can exchange information about the behaviour of the job market and the employment opportunities available in each entity and region of the country.

SiEEs hold meetings periodically to exchange information about vacancies and job-seekers. At these meetings, those belonging to the Employment System also analyse their experience in order to enhance placement mechanisms; they evaluate the activities carried out and support the organisation of promotional and dissemination activities and events with the constant aim of helping workers find employment. In short, these SiEE have facilitated the exchange between vacancies and job-seekers, thereby avoiding duplicate efforts and unnecessary delays in the search for jobs and filling vacancies, whilst reducing the cost involved.

The operative mechanisms of SiEEs are defined by the agents belonging to them and are in response to the specific requirements and conditions of the job market in each state. They are considered to be an effective mechanism because all those involved turn to the System in order to fill vacancies, find employment for job-seekers and exchange information about the job market in order to make the best decisions. SiEEs have become important tools that increase the rate of jobs found and the scope of the attention provided by the Employment Service.

The accelerated process of integration and economic globalisation, the speed of technological change, particularly on the information front, and the radical changes taking place in human activities and in the employment field, call for new strategies enabling the creation of new jobs and the consolidation of existing jobs. The role of Public Employment Services is essential in this context and their modernisation will be decisive in encouraging training at work and for the work force, and also in reducing unemployment and underemployment.

The modern concept of public employment services understands that effective attention can be provided if one is able to adapt and respond in a timely manner to the challenges arising from the opening-up of trade and the restructuring of industry.

Mexico is doing this now. We are constantly strengthening the National Employment Service by means of programmes and activities such as those described: We are utterly convinced that in this task, it is necessary to encourage links with everyone involved in the job market in order to provide job-seekers and employers with first-rate services.

EMP/SKILLS - Skills and Employability Department