27 Mar 2025

The Labour Market Observatory (LMO) was established in November 2022 with a mandate to enhance the employability of education outcomes at all levels of the education pipeline.

Answering a question in Parliament on Tuesday, the Minister of Higher Education Mr Prince Maele said this was achieved through labour market performance analysis, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting, ensuring that macroeconomic policies and strategies are aligned with national development goals.

Mr Maele said the Chief Executive Officer of Business Botswana chairs the LMO and it includes high-level officials and experts from government, private sector, trade unions, civil society and development partners.

He said its outputs are expected to feed into the Cabinet Committee on Employment, chaired by the Vice President, and the National Employment Coordination Council (NECC) chaired by the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, to inform national policies on employment and human resources development.

“This diverse composition ensures a multi-stakeholder approach to address labour market challenges. The instruments that aide the functionality of the LMO are; the Labour Market Information System, which is a statistical software developed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to support data management analysis, and reporting of labour market information, the LMIS Portal and the LMO Secretariat,” he said.

Mr Maele said Botswana launched the LMIS  in August 2024 ahead of other SADC countries and has been used as a benchmark for the rest of Africa. He pointed out that the LMO has produced an analytical paper, which will be presented to the Vice President, Minister of Labour and Home Affairs and the Minister of Higher Education as a tangible output on policy advisory.

Mr Maele said the full operationalisation of the LMO had been hampered by budget constraints since 2023, and as a result, its mandate has been limited to foundational activities such as data preparation, stakeholder engagement and the development of key tools like the LMIS platform.

He explained that the LMIS platform serves as the statistical engine for education and labour market indicators, providing policy-makers with timely and accurate data to inform evidence-based decision-making.

He said the production of Botswana’s first analytical paper on the status of Botswana’s labour market, which utilised indicators extracted from the LMIS has demonstrated potential effectiveness of the tool in facilitating the LMO to collect, analyse and disseminate data on Botswana’s labour market.

The paper unveils significant labour market inefficiencies in the utilisation of the workforce, he said.

Mr Maele said some of the findings highlighted the urgent need for targeted policies to address unemployment, unlock potential of the workforce and ensure more equitable opportunities for all citizens.

He said these insights have equipped the LMO Governing Body with initial data-driven recommendations for policy brief formulation and facilitation of the NECC.

“However, full operationalisation remains dependent on securing adequate funding,” he said.

He said funding would ensure labour market research and business development intelligence and data resources are translated from raw data to policy-ready knowledge products for evidence-based policy-making.

Mr Maele said the analytical paper on the ‘Status of the Botswana Labour Market’ highlights pressing challenges, including severe workforce under-utilisation, gender disparities, and the prevalence of informal employment, and presents data-driven recommendations to address them.

He said these findings would be submitted in the first quarter of the 2025/26 financial year to the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs and Minister of Higher Education and will be escalated to the Vice President for further review and potential integration into the national policy frameworks to enhance employment outcomes and workforce development.

Mr Maele said the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs was still establishing NECC and it would play a role in adopting and utilising the findings from the ILO for coordination efforts to address unemployment and ensure alignment between labour market needs and human resource development strategies.

“While these recommendations are being considered as ongoing policy discussions, their implementation remains contingent upon the approval of collaborative funding for the LMO’s operations and the establishment of collaborative mechanisms such as the NECC,” he said.

Mr Maele said efforts are being made to ensure the LMO has adequate resources, capacity and technology to fulfil its mandate, notwithstanding the challenges faced by his ministry.

He said the Human Resource Development Council was fostering collaboration among government ministries, private sector, trade unions and development partners to ensure multi-sectoral support for LMO’s objectives.

Lobatse MP Kamal Jacobs had asked the minister to state the mandate of LMO, and if the LMO Committee has been effective in collecting and disseminating data on Botswana’s labour market. ENDS