The City of Kigali will today launch an employment service centre to help connect job seekers to prospective employers.

Kigali Employment Service Centre (KESC) will receive and post on a designated portal, profiles of jobseekers from different fields of study as well as available vacancies from public and private institutions.

The centre, which will be operating from Kimisagara Youth Centre, will also provide important employment tips to fresh graduates, including guidance on how to conduct themselves during a job interview and will also facilitate jobseekers with a secretariat for application purposes.

"Some job seekers, despite being skilled are unemployed simply because they do not know how to apply for jobs. Those are problems the centre will be tackling,” the City of Kigali mayor Fidele Ndayisaba told The New Times yesterday during a breakfast meeting with members of the private sector. 

Employers too, will find it easier to locate qualified potential employees since they will be able to access a pool of CVs from job-seekers with diverse training backgrounds, Anna Mugabo, the Director General of Labour and Employment in the Ministry of Labour noted.

Recently, a public institution advertised 150 part time data entry jobs and 15,000 candidates applied.

In another instance, a human resource officer at a local private institution disclosed that, once they were looking for drivers but the majority of applicants did not possess a driving license.

Gerard Mukubu, the deputy CEO of the Private Sector Federation said, "The city’s initiative is carrying answers to the private sector because getting qualified employees to boost productivity in our different businesses is still challenging”.

Mukubu said the centre will make it easier for members of the private sector to connect with them and promised to encourage the members to always share job opportunities information with the centre.