NEWS / EVENTS
The Employment Generation Job Fair Organized by the Government of Nepal
Winrock supports the first ever employment generation fair being held in Kathmandu in early December. Being organized in tandem with the most successful employment generation fair organizer in India i.e. Times of India (which is also one of the most reputed companies in India), the fair will bring some of India's and the world's most reputed companies as employers into Nepal for the first time ever. Companies that are likely to participate in this event include those from the IT/ITES sector like Dell, IBM, American Express, the FMCG sector like Benetton, Bose Corporation and Hertz, the aviation sector like Kingfisher Airlines and Spicejet and the hospitality sector like Marriott, Oberoi and Crowne Plaza hotels.
This job event has the strong potential to be one of the most significant events in the IT, tourism and employment sectors of Nepal. This is because there is a strong potential of more than 1000 Nepalis getting employed during this event (and if successful, such recruiting will happen on a quarterly basis). Additionally, once the Nepali's who get recruited by various employers during this event begin to work in these companies; there will be more interest for their employers to explore deeper into Nepal (if they like the quality of the Nepali employees). Some of them will set up their own branches and centers in Nepal itself.
This first job event will have a strong focus on the IT/ITES companies as well. Government of Nepal's High Level Commission on IT (HLCIT) will organize and endorse this event to promote the IT sector of Nepal to Indian companies participating in this event.
Please visit
http://nhnepal.com/jobfair/ for more.
Background
In order for economic growth to occur, employment of a nation's workforce is vital. Growth in domestic employment in Nepal remains dependant on myriad political, social and market economic factors. But foreign employment is not dependant on such factors in the perspective of Nepal. The advantage of foreign employment is that while it ignores the internal factors affecting Nepal's economy, it contributes substantially to Nepal's economy (as is evident by the remittances of Nepali's working in foreign countries). The largest contributor to the economy of Nepal remains the remittances received from unskilled Nepali workers who are migrating to foreign countries for employment. This figure was around US$ 1.2 billion for the year 2006. If foreign employment for semi skilled workers can be achieved, the remittance numbers would be much higher and have a very substantial positive impact on the economic growth of Nepal's GDP.
According to many international and national opinion polls and surveys, the biggest issue faced in Nepal is the lack of employment - this has consistently ranked ahead of other more publicized issues like the insurgency. The sluggish economy has created a huge pool of unemployed people - and this pool continues to grow rapidly with the annual entry of various high school and college graduates that are either unemployed or underemployed.
International donors operating in Nepal have recognized the scale of the issue of unemployment and have tried to devise various programs aimed to equip this pool with skills required for employment (whether domestic or foreign) or other employment generation schemes. The key though is to first locate the jobs - and then reverse engineer programs tailored to enhance skills or any other thing that will help Nepali's procure those "pre-identified" jobs.
The employment generation job fair will be the first to be ever held in Nepal. The aim is to create a conduit via which the private and public sector companies in foreign countries will get to tap the large number of unemployed yet saleable human resources available in Nepal - thereby contributing towards much needed employment generation and poverty reduction. This effort will help in transfer of appropriate skills and investments that will thereby boost economic growth here.
The companies that will recruit Nepali candidates from this fair will further implant higher level of skills in these candidates during the course of their initial employment term. Hence, within a year from initial employment, these Nepali employees would have developed higher level of skills that will fetch a much higher return for them in the global job market - thereby achieving another key objective of this fair; which is to develop higher level of skills for better employment.
The main objectives of the employment generation fair to be held in Kathmandu are:
- To create a conduit where unemployed high school and college graduates (along with others in the unemployed pool) are sourced into semi skilled and skilled positions in foreign countries in a mass scale.
- To develop higher level of skills for better employment.
The secondary objectives of the employment generation fair are:
- To follow up with repetitive employment generation fairs during the year held at various venues across Nepal to fulfill the main objective.
- To transform the pool of unemployed into a pool of employed semi skilled and skilled Nepali's.
- To attract foreign direct investment by showcasing this transformed pool to highlight the global quality of human resources available in Nepal for companies interested to set up shop here.
- To use this foreign employment strategy to create a reverse domestic employment environment that will occur with the entry of FDI and companies setting up bases in Nepal (taking advantage of its low cost and good human resources available domestically).
