Background

Given the vibrant and dynamic nature of the ICT/BPO sector in Mauritius, there is a perpetual mismatch of skills between what is required by the market and what can be readily provided. One of the reasons underpinning this state of affairs is the information asymmetry that exists at any particular point of time between the demand and supply of labour, job seekers, students, policy makers and other stakeholders alike. This imbalance fuels intense competition for talent and increase pressure on competitiveness which cascades down to increased pressure on educators/trainers and the sector to guide interested students into relevant ICT/BPO education and career paths. This situation results in skills gaps and shortages that can lead to a loss of competitiveness and hamper enterprise productivity.

The dynamics of the ICT/BPO sector coupled to the need to systematically provide novel information on career pathways have therefore highlighted the need for continual information provision, in a user-friendly fashion, in the form of a nomenclature of job profiles.

It is in this context that the HRDC initiated this project to harmonize job descriptions and reduce mismatch between demand and supply of labour for better support to enterprise growth. The strong engagement of the 2 associations (IT Commission of La Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie France Maurice (CCIFM) and Outsourcing and Telecommunications Association of Mauritius (OTAM)) with the common objective to mitigate the information asymmetry to bring harmonisation to the job profiles was a significant response to the challenge. The nomenclature of job profiles describes, amongst others, the skills, qualifications and experience required to hold job roles in a common and understandable way to describe jobs.

The nomenclature of job roles for the ICT/BPO Sector was validated during a stakeholder validation workshop held on 14 March 2013 at the HRDC.