JAMAICA IS not producing the number of appropriately trained workers to fill the jobs which are on offer. Employers are experien-cing a shortage of suitably skilled workers, the Gleaner Editors' Forum in Montego Bay on Thursday was told. The majority of persons seeking jobs in expanding areas of the economy lack the basic skills required.The employers at the Montego Bay forum are not unique. The Jamaica Employers' Federation has long complained about the huge number of unqualified and unskilled people flooding into the labour force each year.
Employers worry about this because it hampers their efforts to boost their productivity and competitiveness. This mismatch between what the labour force offers and what expanding employers need, is of wider national concern.
It is not just the unemployed workers and dissatisfied employers who suffer, but the nation as a whole. Thus the huge potential of the information technology industry, for example, is limited by the shortage of employees who can conduct a conversation in standard English on the telephone. This in a country where English is the official language and which has a 15.4 per cent unemployment level, according to the October 2003 Labour Force Survey of the Statistical Institute.
For the average Jamaican job seeker, the picture is very grim. And skilled Jamaican workers can often find it more lucrative to work in entry level jobs in richer countries. That is one reason for the massive emigration to 'greener pastures' each year.
It needs to be remembered that after basic education most training takes place on the job, but a large number of people have a problem getting a job in the first place. The fundamental problem employers face is that they are losing trained workers to emigration and find that the pool of possible replacements is not very deep.
The irony is that the Ministry of Labour is granting an increasing number of work permits for foreigners to fill local jobs. In such a situation, the Jamaican taxpayer will simply end up underwriting the economies of countries richer than ours.
That is why we support an increased emphasis on improving the effectiveness of our primary and secondary school system. It is critical that the average student emerging from the system has the basic skills to absorb the practical training to perform in the workforce.
We understand that a Task Force on Education is considering issues such as performance-based pay, increasing the number of days in the school year, contract employment of classroom teachers and principals as well as establishing a first degree as the basic qualification for teaching.
Such concepts may be daunting for the teaching profession to contemplate. But Jamaicans need to look beyond sector interests if we wish to meet the basic needs for national development.
