The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Although the Employment and Livelihood Corporation (ELC) is not in existence, however, the Labour and Human Resources Ministry expect that the Employment Responsibility System (ERS) and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) council will deliver the mandate.
During the question hour session in National Assembly, Nanong-Shumar MP, Lungten Namgyel, asked for an update on ELC. He said the government has pledged to establish ELC for proper management and creating employment opportunities in the country.
Labour and Human Resources Minister, Ugyen Dorji, said the government proposed ELC as one of the means towards solving the youth unemployment problems, and facilitating employment services provided to the job seekers.
Lyonpo said a thorough research was done on ELC and it was in the manifesto. The government thought it could do something different, if the corporate entity could handle the job placements and skilling with efficiency.
But after several rounds of review and assessment, the ministry came to a conclusion and the ministry has to institute the Employment Responsibility System.
Lyonpo said the concept of ERS is similar to ELC, and it is a new big idea, in fact mandated by the policy itself.
ERS will constitute the labour market system, job portal, and the employment responsibility committee. The labour market system is intended to inform the job seekers about employment facilitation services provided by the ministry, and the job portal will be used for the purpose of shortlisting and recruitment, selection and appointment of participants for all areas of engagement facilitated by the ministry.
The second thing was TVET revamping happened, and now it being turn into the national TVET council. So the two initiatives combined would actually deliver the mandate that we thought the ELC would deliver, said Lyonpo.
Lyonpo explained that creating a separate entity would unnecessarily bring in delays and additional expenditure, without being efficient and effective in terms of addressing the unemployment problems. So instituting ERS was the better idea and the ministry worked on it.
The main important mandates of ELC were the job facilitations, placement and skilling. Where skilling is taken up by the TVET council and for job facilitation, the department of employment and human resources is looking at it. For now, the ministry is looking at strengthening the department and see how the department can deliver the kind of mandate that the ministry envisioned the ELC to deliver.
Meanwhile, Lyonpo said if a need for ELC arises, the option is still open and the ministry will come up with ELC.
