Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

Some 500 uncertified construction workers have enrolled with the Human Employment And Resource Training Agency (HEART Trust/NTA) in an attempt to be certified in their skilled areas.

The institution has accredited the surge in enrolment to a call made by the institution weeks ago on behalf of the Ministry of Labour to address the alarming number of uncertified workers in this sector.

Three weeks ago hundreds of uncertified and illiterate workers turned up to apply to fill jobs in the construction industry in Canada.

Overwhelming response

Grace McLean, director of enterprise-based training at HEART, said there was an overwhelming response so far from persons in the industry.

"We are in the process of processing these persons, certainly, we have already assessed more than 200 of these persons and the additional persons are going through training with a view of receiving their certification," she told The Gleaner.

Mrs. McLean said response islandwide has been good and persons have turned up at the institution's assessment centres. She said that many of these workers were at the basic level or level one.

"The basic level simply means that these persons are adequately trained and prepared to manage an entry level job. This person has to be supervised but this person has the basic competencies required to manage the job under supervision," she explained.

She said many of the respondents have years of experience with the average age being 35 years.

"We have seen where many of the persons who are going through the assessment aspects of the programme are persons who have a lot of experience, having worked in the field, they know what they are doing but they need to go through to ensure that they can comply with the international standards as it relates to the programme," she said.

"We are happy that especially the construction workers are coming out to make use of the opportunities and very soon we will definitely have many more trained and certified persons to meet workforce demand both locally and internationally," she added.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com