The Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture has be­gun mass screen­ing ex­er­cis­es as it moves ahead with plans to fill 1,100 va­can­cies across sev­er­al op­er­a­tional and tech­ni­cal de­part­ments.

It said it plans to have short­list­ed ap­pli­cants on pro­ba­tion by De­cem­ber 1.

The min­istry said the screen­ings come af­ter last month’s Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve, which ran from Oc­to­ber 19 to 24 at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome in Bal­main, Cou­va, and at­tract­ed more than 28,000 ap­pli­ca­tions. Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, about 6,800 ap­pli­cants sought po­si­tions as labour­ers.

Over­all, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there were more than 110,000 ap­pli­ca­tions that came on­line and through phys­i­cal sub­mis­sions.

The Works Min­istry said the screen­ing for the first batch of labour­er can­di­dates be­gan yes­ter­day at the min­istry’s of­fice and will con­tin­ue un­til No­vem­ber 21. Of­fi­cials, ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, ex­pect to process rough­ly 1,000 ap­pli­cants per day.

The min­istry said ap­pli­cants cur­rent­ly be­ing screened range from 20 to 45 years old, and most are un­em­ployed and seek­ing to en­ter the work­force.

It said the screen­ing in­cludes ori­en­ta­tion ses­sions on the min­istry’s op­er­a­tions and ex­pec­ta­tions, a 15- to 30-minute phys­i­cal fit­ness as­sess­ment to de­ter­mine whether can­di­dates are pre­pared for the phys­i­cal de­mands of the job, and an in­ter­view to as­sess over­all suit­abil­i­ty.

The Works Min­istry said it is work­ing to­wards de­ploy­ing short­list­ed labour­ers on pro­ba­tion from De­cem­ber 1. It said those who com­plete the pro­ba­tion pe­ri­od will be as­signed to dis­trict of­fices na­tion­wide to sup­port pri­or­i­ty projects set for ex­e­cu­tion.

When Per­sad-Bisses­sar vis­it­ed the re­cruit­ment dri­ve, she said she was not sur­prised by the re­sponse, as em­ploy­ment was one of the main pleas cit­i­zens made dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign.

The re­cruit­ment aimed to fill va­can­cies in the pub­lic sec­tor.