Entice potential workforce with job training, says EPOC chairman
Published:Thursday | July 21, 2022 | 12:09 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
KEITH DUNCAN, chairman of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), said that with Jamaica having at least 500,000 people who are currently not part of the local labour force, programmes must be put in place to adequately train young people for the job market.
Duncan made the recommendation on Wednesday while addressing the EPOC’s quarterly press briefing on the Zoom platform, where he revealed that Jamaica’s unemployment rate stands at six per cent as at April.
“Notwithstanding the fact that unemployment is at six per cent, the number of the employed labour force is 1,269,300 people, 3,400 below the number employed in January 2020. So we are marginally below the number of employed people in the labour force pre-COVID-19, and that is the workforce participation rate, as there are approximately 500,000 unemployed people between the ages of 14 and 44, and about 250,000 of those would be in school and the balance are not actively seeking employment,” said Duncan.
“This is where we need to focus as a country, to see how we can increase the labour pool by having them get eligible for the workforce and put forward training and human capital development to get them up and running and into the workforce,” Duncan added.
According to the EPOC chairman, young people need to be suitably attracted to joining the workforce by being assured that they can get jobs with high enough pay to keep them invested.
“If we are going to grow as a country, we have to get into high value-added jobs. So the education transformation work needs to kick in, because we need to train our people for the new economy that we are seeing, and our young people are going to want to have attractive and well-paying jobs to be attracted to come into the labour force and knowing there are skill-training programmes that will prepare them,” Duncan added.
His recommendation follows Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ announcement that 6,000 young people across Jamaica will be employed over a six-week period under the Government’s Youth Summer Employment Programme (YSEP), which was launched on Friday, July 15. Participants will be placed in public sector organisations and will begin work on August 8, earning $10,000 weekly while team leaders will earn $11,000 weekly.
The YSEP, which began in 2016, has to date provided employment for approximately 27,500 young people, with some 500 of that number getting permanent employment in the public service.
Duncan also told Wednesday’s briefing that GDP growth for this fiscal year and for the 2023-24 fiscal year is expected to remain within a two-to-four per cent range, a forecast supported by consistent growth in the tourism sector and its related services.
“We got a report from the members of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association about cruise arrivals for the month of May, they were 110 per cent above the same period in May 2019. Cruise arrivals are at about 25 per cent for the period from January through May; however, what we see is an upward trajectory in cruises, and that is also very positive for the economy, for attractions, craft markets, and the downstream activities,” Duncan explained.
“All of this underlines the continued strength of the economy, coming in at 8.2 per cent for the fiscal year 2021-22, but this was driven by hotels and restaurants at 107.1 per cent year over year,” Duncan added. “We will see the economy continue to grow, as what we saw last year was bouncing off the lows of the COVID-19 period. Now we expect that the economy will continue to sustain between two to four per cent.”