Follow us on:

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube

Domestic

Interview with Wendy Didon, owner and director of Job Plus |04 March 2021

Interview with Wendy Didon, owner and director of Job Plus

Mrs Didon (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

‘Our future is a question mark’

 

On Monday, March 1 the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs opened its new employment office at Oceangate House with the aim of assisting persons who are seeking employment.

A few doors down however is the private-owned employment agency, Job Plus, a key provider of job placement services to job seekers and businesses for over 12 years.

One of the few private employment agencies in the country, Job Plus has one office on Mahé and another on Praslin.

With the ministry setting up its quasi-employment agency, the owner and director of Job Plus, Wendy Didon, has expressed her uneasiness with the government competing against private-owned agencies.

“It is an unfair competition because the government is operating its employment office with a guaranteed budget, it has staffing and everything. It is also providing employers with a free service when they have to charge a fee for ours, so this is definitely a challenge for private employment agencies,” explained Mrs Didon.

Job Plus was among some of the businesses that emerged from the quagmire of the 2008 recession, after Seychelles embarked on International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.

“We opened this business on May 2, 2009, following the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommendations for Seychelles to privatise employment agencies. This is the moment when Job Plus entered the market,” recalled Mrs Didon.

“Registering persons who are looking for work, referring them to job openings, helping them to the best of our abilities; all of those things were asked to be privatised.”

She added that it is unclear whether the government is still operating under these privatisation principles, or if these have shifted.

“Nonetheless, the opening of the employment office will affect Job Plus a lot because we are a private agency and as a business we have to generate a sufficient amount of funds to ensure that we keep operating. And if the government comes alongside to deliver the same service then naturally people would gravitate towards the government.”

Mrs Didon noted that she has expressed this exact sentiment on various occasions to the employment department.

Rather than inserting itself in the employment seeking market, the government should now more than ever look towards assisting private employment agencies, Mrs Didon continued.

At present, Job Plus is operating with only three staff, two of whom are on the permanent payroll including Mrs Didon, and a young girl who joined the agency last year under the Seychelles Employment Transition Scheme (Sets).

The latter’s position however is a precarious one since Sets closed down in February.

Already under some financial strife – not struggling but definitely not comfortable – the agency is looking into introducing an annual fee of R500 for the businesses that make use of its service.

The fee will cover the bank of data which the agency has to store for the businesses. Aside from identifying candidates for vacancies, Job Plus also assists businesses with administrative work such as payroll management and paperwork for gainful occupation permits (GOPs), and so forth.

“If the businesses are not open to the idea of an annual fee, we will unfortunately have to let her go,” said Mrs Didon.

Job Plus is also venturing into an annual fee of R25 for job seekers who are registered with the agency, separate from the one-time payment of R25 to register.

The agency used to receive a minimal amount from the government for every job seeker who registered and successfully placed in employment, although this has ceased since January 2020.

“We came into this business with an objective; to see the fruits of our labour. We believe that we are doing something right and so something right must come out of it, even if we are faced with these various challenges,” said Mrs Didon.

Nonetheless, this optimistic outlook did not stop her from describing the future of employment agencies such as hers as uncertain.

“Our future is a question mark, if the situation continues the way it is now we will have to strive harder; be more resilient so as to overcome the challenges. At this point in time, our future is in dire straits,” stated Mrs Didon.

Since January 2021 up to the end of February, around 142 new job seekers have registered with the agency. The agency also is catering to some of the 19,000 plus people that are already registered in their database and who are looking for employment once again.

With Covid-19, the company has migrated online with its vacancies which it publishes on its Facebook and Instagram pages. Job Plus will soon also have its own website, revealed Mrs Didon.

As for face to face interactions, Job Plus is hoping to welcome back walk-in clients in about two weeks’ time.

 

Elsie Pointe

 

 

 

 

More news