The Effects of Labour Market Information Systems on Unemployment: A Case of Dar es Salaam Region in Tanzania

This study investigated the effects of Labour Market Information Systems (LMIS) on unemployment, in Dar es Salaam region in Tanzania. The Study also assessed effectiveness of LMIS functions, and explored factors affecting performance of with a view of providing empirical evidence on making informed decisions related to balancing the problem of labour supply and demand and control of unemployment. The Study was guided by three main questions focusing on the extent LMIS affects manpower planning, unemployment and determination of other factors which affects performance LMIS in Dar es Salaam Region. The Study used mixed methods approach which is superior to individual approaches due to its ability of optimising on the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative underpinnings. The study covered 2,896 participants aged 18 – 75 years. The Dar es Salaam Business Register of Establishments was used as a sampling frame and a two-stage stratified sampling approach was used to select eligible participants. The study applied Ordinal Regression Model (ORM) to analyse quantitative data using Statistical Packages for Social Scientists and Taguette software was used to analyse qualitative data. Results reveal that manpower planning is a positive significant predictor of the performance of LMIS with parameter estimate value of +21.485 meaning that; for every one unit increase in efficiency of manpower planning, there is a probability that performance of LMIS will increase by 21.485 units. Similar results were obtained from use of ICT with parameter estimate value of positive 1.433. On the other hand, the findings revealed that, unemployment is a significant negative predictor of LMIS with parameter estimates of negative 3.56 which means that, for every unit increase in unemployment there is a predicted 3.56 units decrease in the performance of LMIS. Basing on the established statistical significance of results from the ORM, this study recommends several actions to be taken to enhance performance of LMIS and control of unemployment. These actions bring together key requirements needed for the Government, employers, training institutions and other key stakeholders to adopt rational practices of manpower planning; accelerating adoption of other social economic factors relevant for performance of LMIS; and also adopting efforts to curb unemployment.