Dept drafts labour policy

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK

LABOUR Department and Industrial Relations Secretary Mary Morola says they now have a draft national labour policy to identify labour and skills needed in PNG.
“This draft policy will help us identify the labour and skill shortages that we have in the country,” she said.
“This policy is timely given the big projects we now have. We identify which labour skills that we don’t have and what skills that foreigners can come in with and fill out.”
Morola said the draft policy needed to be further worked on.
“This daft was done by the International Labour Organisation with the help of Massey University in New Zealand. This draft will identify skills mismatch in the labour market.
“Skills mismatch is when there is no employment for skills that one has so he or she just picks up any other employment to earn a living.
“This policy intends to make a clear path in addressing such mismatch. This policy is the result of some hard work by our stakeholders like the workers’ unions, government agencies, etc.”
Morola said that the aim of the draft policy was to get the directive from the Government to come up with a good National Labour policy.
“This policy will set a lot of things right, issues like unemployment, underemployment, mismatched of skills shortages in the labour market and in terms of labour administration and regulator like the Labour Department, National Planning and Personnel Management Department. It will clear our roles and responsibilities in employment opportunities.”