The High Level Ministerial Committee set up under the Chairmanship of the Acting Prime Minister, Minister of Tourism and External Communications, Mr. Xavier Duval, to address the mismatch between local employability and imported labour has submitted its recommendations to the Government. The Committee has examined, among others, the unemployment situation, the increasing number of qualified unemployed, and the lack of manpower planning.
The Committee has recommended, among others, that specific sectors, such as ICT, financial and insurance, and manufacturing, should be encouraged to attract foreign skills, know-how and talents in order to give a boost to the sectors. It has also recommended that an appropriate policy should be devised to encourage the employment of expatriates in scarcity and priority fields whilst leaving areas of low skills, or where sufficient trained labour is available, to citizens of Mauritius.
According to the Committee scarcity areas and parameters for both work permits and occupation permits should be reviewed, in particular in the tourism and construction sectors. Furthermore, it has also recommended that a data bank of masons and other relevant jobs in the construction sector should be set up whereby the unemployed can register with the Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations, Employment and Training, and be eligible for appropriate training.
It also recommends that the criteria for the issue of occupation permit should be revised and the minimum salary reviewed. It further recommends that fairness and transparency should be instilled in the process adopted for the employment of foreign workers in order to create opportunities for local job seekers.
New training institutions for capacity building in the cruise and nursing Sectors should be opened, and the private sector encouraged to provide relevant training are amongst the other recommendations made by the Committee.
