Career Fair should maintain transparency in results
Among a total of 43,386 who applied for jobs in last year’s career fair, only 5.72 percent have been given employment, the figures reveal.
According to statistics, although there were a total of 6,430 applicants for education opportunities and grants, only 601 of them were accepted. Among the 3,430 who applied for training, only 1000 were chosen. Likewise, applications for ‘development’ totalled 3,069, out of which only 192 were accepted. The Career Fair was held in March 2010, involving participating of a total of 114 firms, including some Ministries, Qatar Petroleum, private and joint sector companies.
According to the Chairman of Career Fair Follow-up Committee, Khalid Abdullah Al Sulaiti, the Energy and Industry sector accounts for largest number of job requests. Next was the Financial Services and Business sector with about 15,000 applications being drawn, although only 1,098 were chosen for jobs.
According to an observer, people should be made aware of the number of jobs, training opportunities and scholarships that are on the offer at the fair. If the whole process is not transparent, people may not take the fair seriously, and think that the companies are participating in the fair for their own publicity.
Once the actual numbers of vacancies are announced, people can get to know that the Fair is not a gimmick, as it has not helped much in solving the unemployment problem in the country, so far, he said.
Further, the detailed report after the fair is not disclosed tot he media or the public, and therefore, the public will not know how far it has helped in solving the unemployment problem in the country.
In the absence of transparency, people have begun questioning the usefulness of the Fair. According to sources, an effective way to ensure that suitably qualified nationals land jobs is to route employment advertisements through national manpower development committee at the Labour Ministry.
The sources pointed out that in Abu Dhabi, for instance, all jobs advertised for nationals are routed through their national manpower development panel, which keeps track of these positions until they are filled. However, in Qatar, the jobs are announced by firms independently and, no agency verifies if the position is actually filled by a national or not.
Posted on 4/4/2011