Web Based Labour Market Observatory System

Abstract

Finding the most suitable job according to one’s qualifications and capabilities is a dream of the youth. Yet, it is noticed that this is not an easy task due to a variety of reasons such as complexity of advertisements, time limitations in getting firsthand information on vacancies, diversity of vacancy appearing modes etc. Hence most youth end up in spending their time unsuccessfully in searching for job opportunities or accepting sub optimal job positions. With the advancement of technology, the modes of advertising of job vacancies have changed and the World Wide Web (www) has become the most dynamic job advertising mode. Labour Market Information (LMI) bulletin published bi-annually by the Technical and Vocational Education Commission (TVEC) is a good source of information for job seekers, which is a systematic collection of job vacancies on the labour market requirements in Sri Lanka. The main and primary source of data collection for the LMI Bulletin is the manual search of newspaper advertisements carried out by the Information System Division of TVEC since 1999. This has become an obsolete method and a Web Based Labour Market Observatory System (LMOS) was developed that operates as a back end system to capture job market information from the www for the LMI bulletin and it can act as a portal for job market vacancies from the user point of view. The LMOS is able to rank the vacancies according to the user requirement and contain aggregated information from other sites such as topjobs.lk, ikman.lk and ikmanjob.lk. These are value added features of the LMOS system compared to other job advertising sites. LMOS has three (03) user categories namely jobseeker, employer (company) and the admin (TVEC) depending on the role played. A jobseeker can register with the system and upload his/her Curriculum Vitae (CV) and search the system for job vacancies based on job category, location, salary and with more details such as qualifications, and programming languages known. A registered employer can make a request to upload new vacancies and can view the CVs for potential candidates. Admin has the authoritative power in uploading new vacancies and generating reports for the LMI bulletin. The system operates based on two main processes, namely, web extract process and user search process. In the web extracting process, the LMOS mines the selected job advertising sites and extracts data by filtering the relevant using web content mining techniques as per the user request. For registered job seekers, an email alert is sent when a matching job is captured by the system. The system evaluation is done by two sets of users, one by the TVEC and the other by the system users through two separate questionnaires. The TVEC was highly satisfied with the new simplified mechanism for capturing online advertised jobs for the LMI bulletin and job seekers found the LMOS as a time saver for being a job vacancy portal and email alerts were a very appealing feature of the system. Keywords: www, labour market observatory system ddran@ou.ac.lk Tel: +94 716388014