Labour ministry on massive overseas employment drive
published:
Tuesday | October 7, 2008
Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter
Charles: It is a tough time for the workers. - File
EVEN AS a recession moves across parts of the developed world, casting clouds of uncertainty on the economies of developing nations like Jamaica, the minister of labour is banking on securing hundreds of jobs in Canada for locals.
"The Ministry of Labour is going to be on a massive recruitment drive for overseas employment and will be targeting a number of skilled workers who are being made redundant," said Labour Minister Pearnel Charles.
Job losses
A credit crunch in the United States (US) has forced thousands of persons out of jobs.
Official reports indicate that 760,000 jobs have disappeared so far this year in that country. In September alone, employers dropped the axe and chopped payrolls by 159,000 - more than double the cuts made just one month before.
Thousands of persons have already lost jobs in Britain's financial sector as many of the companies have witnessed the fastest free falls in business levels, profitability and confidence in almost two decades, media reports say.
Canada feeling pinch
Canada, which absorbs many Jamaican workers, is also bracing for an economic downturn, a spillover from the US crisis.
The Bank of Canada has said that the global economic crisis is starting to seriously affect Canada's financial system and announced it needed to inject another $12 billion in cash to ensure Canada's chartered banks had enough capital to make loans.
Similarly, a report released by the Ontario Federation of Labour on Friday stated that in the last two years alone, 10,700 jobs had been lost and the pace of job losses had accelerated.
Average manufacturing employ-ment so far this year is 11 per cent below where it was in 2007 - a loss of 6,700 jobs in 2008 - the report stated.
Jamaica's challenge
Jamaica's overseas employment programme places a vast number of locals in Canada and the US yearly. The 2008 Annual Report of the Ministry of Labour said that 14,000 Jamaicans were employed under the programme during the 2007-2008 fiscal year.
But Jamaica has had its own challenges with job losses.
Derrick Kellier, the opposition spokesman on labour, has said that more than 5,000 jobs have been lost since the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) came to power last year.
About 885 people have been made redundant since January and about 7,000 more jobs are to go, through the divestment of government-owned sugar factories.
Tough time
Charles was not in a position to provide numbers on job losses when The Gleaner spoke recently with him, but said he was aware of the problem.
"It is a tough time for the workers," Charles, a trade unionist, said.
Charles added that funding had been secured from the European Union to assist with retraining many workers who had been made redundant.
The labour minister, whose JLP had promised to deliver "jobs, jobs, jobs" to Jamaicans, said the Govern-ment should not be blamed for job losses.
"Internationally, there is a problem. There is restructuring, there is downsizing and there are businesses closing down around the world. Jamaica is no different," Charles argued.
However, he said despite the setback, hundreds of persons would have the opportunity to breathe again when the ministry announces employment opportunities in Canada this week.
Kellier believes that despite the world economic situation, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will present Jamaica with a great opportunity to have more workers in Canada.
