Employers and recruitment companies face big challenges when sourcing blue-collar workers from abroad. Locating workers with the right skills is both costly and labor intensive, usually done by using field agents in lower-income countries or recommendations from current workers or worksite supervisors. In both cases, the high value of job placements means job offers can become a valuable commodity, creating significant risk for employers, recruiters and workers themselves.
Secure, Transparent Recruitment
Okolabor is a digital recruitment platform designed to give employers and recruiters direct access to the right workers at the right time. Workers create detailed profiles showcasing their skills, availability, and work history, making it easy to filter and select the best candidates based on employer needs.
This direct connection reduces costs, improves hiring accuracy, and minimizes business risk:
- Connecting directly with workers reduces costs as recruitment partners no longer need to go out into the field for recruitment drives.
- Using a large database with tens of thousands of worker profiles improves hiring accuracy as employers & their professional recruitment partners can more easily find workers with the right skills and experience.
- Risk is minimized bypassing the need for unverified local agents or referrals from current workers or supervisors who may charge illegal recruitment fees to workers without employers or recruiters’ knowledge.
With support from the Walmart Foundation, LaMP is launching Okolabor within the context of the U.S. H-2A visa program, that grants temporary entry to over 300,000 migrant agricultural workers annually, mostly from Mexico. We are partnered with large industry players, moving over 30,000 workers annually, which helps ensure rapid scaling.
Beyond H-2A, the widespread adoption of internet enabled phones among lower-income populations in developing countries and migrants in particular makes tech-based recruitment solutions more viable than in previous decades. Our long-term plan is to scale from proof-of-concept to broad application within existing international recruitment systems for blue-collar workers. Our vision is that Okolabor will eventually become a global marketplace where workers can accurately and effectively market their skills across borders and connect with employers through a safe and extortion-free channel.