Pablo was not looking for a job, but he found the one of his dreams. "I had a LinkedIn profile, and one of my contacts there told me about ParaEmpleo, so I made a profile out of curiosity," he said. "I was very surprised when a company reached out and offered me a position as head of a department. It was too good an opportunity to let it go."

Like thousands of Paraguayans, Pablo used ParaEmpleo, an online platform created by the government to promote employment in the country. The system uses artificial intelligence to analyze the specific capabilities of each applicant and connect them with job opportunities. The technology behind it analyzes occupation and employment data through Deep Learning and Knowledge Graphs algorithms to find job vacancies efficiently and accurately. 

The user of ParaEmpleo creates an online profile with their skills, qualifications, specializations, and linguistic knowledge, among others. With this information, the service finds the most relevant job opportunities available to which they can apply. If new vacancies appear in the future that suit their profile, they are contacted about them. Throughout this process, each user has control over their privacy preferences so that they can choose what information to show to companies with vacancies. One of the most interesting features of the platform is that it advises users on how to be more competitive in the labor market. The system regularly analyzes which jobs and skills are on high demand and based on your profile, it recommends free or paid courses you can take to improve your chances of being hired. 

"The tool is so precise that it makes you reflect deeply on the skills and experience you actually have. In fact, I had never realized how much experience I have in the insurance industry, so I could also take a leadership position," says Pablo about his experience with ParaEmpleo. 

The platform also makes it cheaper and more efficient for companies to find qualified candidates."The costs involved in recruiting new personnel for a small carpentry shop like ours can become prohibitive," says the owner of a carpentry company in Asunción, who hired several of its employees through the platform. "ParaEmpleo not only allowed us to save money on job advertisements, but it also saved us time because we did not have to read a lot of resumes, since the matching function works well," he says. 

The employment offices in Paraguay were not always as efficient. In 2010, there were labor intermediation offices operating in Asunción and in 5 departments (Concepción, Guairá, Caazapá, Amambay and Cordillera). To get help from one of these offices, the applicants had to physically deliver their CV in paper and a government employee consulted manually the vacancy archive. The system was so slow and expensive that the largest office in Asunción provided job guidance to only 562 people in 2010. 

Today, ParaEmpleo has a database of more than 25,000 applicants who are offered opportunities in real time. The platform was created in collaboration with the firm JANZZ.technology within the framework of the Support Program for Labor Insertion -a loan to increase the coverage and effectiveness of employment programs in Paraguay- supported by the IDB since 2011. 

In the opinion of our representative in Paraguay, María Florencia Attademo-Hirt, the innovative use of technology to solve social issues can propel the development of the country. "Innovative tools like this are what will improve the lives of Paraguayans, beyond the Mercosur and regional context," she says. 

If you want to know more about the future of work in Latin America and the Caribbean, download our publication here.

On April 8 and 9, our annual meeting with civil society will take place in Paraguay, where we will discuss the future of work. If you want to know more about how the IDB Group collaborates with civil society, you can download this publication.