Labour management system to be in place by summer — Smith
Deputy Premier and Labour Minister Lorna Smith announced that the government will implement the online Labor Management System (LMS) in the next few weeks.
“It will be online by the summer but I don’t want to give you specifics,” Smith said at a press conference yesterday.
The announcement comes as the government modernises and streamlines employment processes and improves service delivery across the territory.
Minister Smith noted the system’s capacity to significantly reduce permit application turnaround times and enhance access for employers and job seekers.
The Labour Ministry said the system, still in its pilot phase, has already onboarded many employers and processed hundreds of employee records.
Selected employers participating in the pilot have reported promising outcomes. Expectations are set for work permit renewals to be processed within two weeks and new applications within four weeks, a substantial improvement over the current durations, often criticised for their length and complexity.
Smith shared that the LMS promises unparalleled convenience and efficiency and will advance the territory’s labour administration infrastructure while playing a transformative role in the local economy.
Despite some inevitable teething issues, the feedback from early adopters has been overwhelmingly positive. The system is expected to handle close to 1,000 employee records by the end of June.
Minister Smith previously explained that the LMS goes beyond streamlining work permit processing and provides valuable data to identify skill gaps and develop targeted workforce development strategies.
“This data will empower us to forge stronger partnerships with educational institutions and employers,” Smith stated. “Together, we can also optimise opportunities for Virgin Islanders and Belongers to actively participate in the workforce.”
Smith told lawmakers earlier this year that the initial phase of implementing the digital platform for work permit processing occurred in 2021. However, she said this pilot project was discontinued because of capacity constraints within the Labour Department.
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The first day of summer is June 20. That’s 7 days from now.
If this new system will stop stamping all these entry-level work permits when it is obvious who are here ar enot working? Why I asked? Because it certainly seems to lots of us on the outside that actual administrators are not considering these applications. They are just there to process every single, freaking one that comes. Well, if that’s the case, it’s sad indeed.
PUt our people to work. So hopefully that new system will have a list of persons locally available to work that they can tap into before issuing a permit to stack shelves and cash in supermarkets for example. I hear politicians talking about our people educating themselves to take their rightful place. Yes, we have to and I think that we are. We are just in one position until retirement, no upward mobility and worse, our entry level positions are now filled by people from thousands of miles away.