‘What you going to pay them?’

Former president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica Howard Mitchell has dismissed as absurd arguments for the importation of labour into Jamaica, asserting that wages across the island are woefully low.

“I hear people talking about a shortage of labour in Jamaica and that we’re going to import labour. I want to know what you going to pay them?” the business executive questioned.

“If you think you are going to get anybody from anywhere – and I say this not in a denigratory fashion – except Haiti, and pay them $400 an hour, I have news for you. And if you pay them more than that, people would tear down the country,” he added.

Three years ago, roughly 80 per cent of Jamaican workers were not paying income tax, falling on or below the threshold of $1.5 million.

Mitchell, who was speaking at Campion College’s annual Archbishop Samuel Carter Lecture last Thursday, said the country’s leaders must understand that it has to produce its own labour force to meet the demand of production and businesses.

Under the theme ‘Leadership issues in present-day Jamaica’, Mitchell told those in attendance that it is imperative that Jamaica begins that deliberate process of giving its children, through the education system, the analytical capacity to cope with the 21st century.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness and other business interests have repeatedly stressed as “a national emergency” the growing labour shortage in the country, while pointing to the possibility of importing skilled labour.

For much of last year, Holness broached the topic, noting a gap between school-leavers and those that graduate to the labour force.

Holness has indicated that the present record-low unemployment rate of 4.5 per cent does not take into account those who are not seeking work or who have otherwise opted to stay outside the labour force.

“If we continue to grow and our growth base increases, we will use up those who are outside (the labour force), maybe in the next five years, six years, or even 10 years. But you can’t wait ‘til that point in the future to make policies for that time. You have to be thinking ahead,” Holness said in making the case for labour importation.

But Mitchell maintains that changing the approach to how Jamaican children are educated is the solution.

“I’m not an educator, but what I can tell you is that, in my profession, law, we are faced with a situation where we are producing for a market that does not exist.

“How much more lawyers we need? And, if we are going to produce these lawyers because we have the institutional capacity, let us produce them with a view to putting them to do legal BPO (business process outsourcing) tasks and to do offshore opinions. Deliberately fashion an industry for them. Not have them congregate at the lignum vitae tree outside May Pen Hospital waiting for the ambulance. It is demeaning,” said Mitchell.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com