ILO signs MOU with CARICOM to provide assistance on a regional LMIS

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to provide technical support for the implementation of its Labour Market Information System (LMIS) Project for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) under the 10^th European Development Fund.

In particular it will customize the IT tool “.Stat” for CARICOM LMIS purposes. “.Stat” is originally developed by an OECD hosted statistical information systems community of which the ILO became a contributing member in 2015.

The ILO, presented the software at a regional consultation hosted by the CARICOM Secretariat in October 2015. This was attended by representatives of Ministries of Labour, Statistics departments and Social Security agencies from the member States. Coming out of subsequent meetings with member States, it was agreed that this software tool was appropriate to facilitate the setting up of a CARICOM LMIS, and would avoid developing a standalone software tool from scratch.  

The ILO has agreed to work with the CARICOM project consultants for them to install and deploy the LMIS.Stat instances. It will also provide initial training.

The MOU foresees further collaboration in the area of labour market information also beyond the lifespan of the EU-project, like elaboration and definition of indicators, including data from administrative records system, harmonization of surveys and classifications, additional training.

The MOU which was signed in June 2016 by Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin LaRoque, on behalf of the CARICOM Secretariat, and Ms Claudia Coenjaerts, Director, ILO Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean, on behalf of the ILO, comes at a time when the Community looks to strengthen its national statistical systems as endorsed by its Action Plan for Statistics at the recently concluded 37^th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government which was convened in Georgetown, Guyana, 4-6 July 2016.

On signing the MOU, Ms Coenjaerts highlighted the importance of access to reliable, timely and internationally-comparable labour statistics in a regionally linked system for use by governments, policymakers, employers and trade unions.