The Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) has started preliminary homework to develop an online roster of job applicants that would replace the conventional recruitment process in the long run.

 

The department has envisioned this system to work as a bridge between job seekers and recruitment agencies. Job seekers will have to upload their personal biodata with information, including their ages, qualifications as well as preferred professions and countries. Overseas employment companies could pick the applicants from theonline roster based on their requirements.

 

The system, as described by officials, will work more or less like anonline roster of jobseekers maintained by South Korea in the Employment Permit System (EPS). “The job seekers will have to enlist themselves in the online system, from where they will be finally picked by the employers. The applicants can check whether or not they have been selected,” said DoFE Director General Binod KC.

 

Department officials say this system will ensure transparency in the recruitment process and lessen chances of fraud, corruption, misconduct and exploitation of migrant workers.

 

As the existing recruitment process takes place between recruitment companies and prospective workers, the government hardly knows whether the transactions carried out by employment companies have gone by the book. Although reliable researches are hard to come by, stakeholders, including government officials, believe that a majority of the workers are exploited by the recruitment agencies, government officials and employers abroad in one way or the other.

 

“The online system will control several problems, including the use of double work contracts, disparities in jobs, wage and recruitment fees. “We have realised that the online system could resolve many of the problems concerning the foreign employment industry,” said KC, adding that time is ripe to give up the traditional system. The government has not been able to reform the foreign employment industry sustained by an estimated 2.5 million migrant workers. The outflow of around 1,500 young people each day has made it difficult for the understaffed department, with barely 100 workers, to deal with paperworks.

 

DoFE officials said the online job shop will be an extension of its ongoing efforts to develop an online system. The department has already established online connections with Nepali missions in the labour destinations by providing an ‘ online access code’, to provide notices of final approval, service charge, wages and jobs via mobile SMS.

 

Officials claim the new initiatives has generated desired outcomes. However, the DoFE has not been able to implement its erstwhile announcement to conduct the online transaction with recruitment companies.

 

Overseas employment agencies, however, have termed the envisioned project a “sheer stupidity”. “Records show around 80 percent of our workforce is illiterate. This means the workers will be further exploited and derpived of true information,” said Bal Bahadur Tamang, chairman of the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies.

 

Foreign job entrepreneurs claim that the plan is an attempt to displace their companies and damage the foreign employment industry.