The Labour Mobility Unit (LMU) within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Pacific Labour Facility (PLF) on recruitment database.
The In-Country Recruitment Database (IRD) is a custom-built management system specifically designed to support the operations of the LMU in managing and monitoring the Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) and Seasonal Workers Program (SWP).
Solomon Islands is the first country to have the IRD implemented and deployed by PLF.
The agreement outlines the key responsibilities and roles of each stakeholder and how the operation of the IRD platform will be used to support all labour mobility activities in the Solomon Islands.
Mr Cornelius Walegerea, Permanent Secretary (Supervising) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade (MFAET) and Mr Gavin Murray, Team Leader, Pacific Labour Facility successfully signed the MOU on Friday 11 December 2020. Ms. Julie McCallum, Counsellor, Australian High Commission and officers of the Labour Mobility Unit., also witnessed the signing.
In his remarks, Mr Walegerea acknowledges the partnership between PLF and LMU in achieving such outcome.
“This ceremony and the signing of the MOU is a huge achievement for the Ministry, let alone, the Labour Mobility Unit. It is a milestone success built upon partnership and collaboration, underpinned by a collective decision-making process between PLF and LMU,” said the PS
“The signing of the MOU this afternoon is truly a shared success”.
The PS strongly believes that this partnership will only grow from strength to strength, and my Ministry and I look forward to celebrating more success with PLF and the Australian government.
Mr Murray said the new recruitment database would assist the LSU to better match Solomon Islanders with job opportunities in Australia.
“Solomon Islanders have an excellent reputation in Australia as being reliable and hard-working and as a result there is strong demand for these workers,” Mr Murray said.
“The IRD will be more efficient at matching worker profiles with suitable Australian employers and will ensure that the Solomon Islands continues to be well-represented in Australia’s labour mobility programs,” he said.
The database was designed and purposely built to meet the needs of the Solomon Islands LMU in effectively and efficiently managing the Labour Mobility Schemes.
This is a huge achievement and improvement from the current practice whereby data is stored and managed on an excel spreadsheet highlighting the potential risks of data loss, security breach, and onerous process that is time consuming.
The Australian Government through the PLF has played a major role in supporting the LMU over the recent years.
Ms McCallum congratulated the teams involved and stated that the” IRD will indeed bring about many benefits for the LMU staff and the seasonal workers. The signing today is the result of hard work, and consultations to ensure that it is fit for its purpose and most importantly fit for the Solomon Islands context.”
The agreement also ensures PLF will continue to provide ongoing training and technical support.
The database is a reliable, secure, and well-supported platform to ensure that the LMU staff are able to manage and monitor the work ready pool of candidates.
LMU manages the Australian and New Zealand labour mobility schemes.