Editorial | Demand for skills training

In Panama last week, Kamina Johnson Smith, the foreign affairs and foreign trade minister, told international investors that the island’s post-hurricane reconstruction made Jamaica the right place for them at this time.

“We have massive opportunities for rebuilding coming out of our recovery in the western part of the island,” Ms Johnson Smith said at an investment forum hosted by CAF – Development Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean.

“So, if you are in construction, if you are in digital services, if you are in knowledge processing, animation, or any of those interesting new areas, Jamaica is the place to be.”

There is obvious logic in the minister’s assertion. For after Hurricane Melissa’s destruction of the western third of the island last October – leaving an estimated US$8.6 billion in direct damage to buildings and public infrastructure – a major rebuilding project will have to be undertaken in the seven worst-affected parishes.

Indeed, the Government has established a special-purpose body to spearhead the rebuilding, and a raft and global financial institutions have identified at least US$6.7 billion for the reconstruction.

Once the big reconstruction projects are under way there should be ongoing building and related activities in western Jamaica for perhaps five years.

This expectation, however, raises two important issues, which could impact how quickly and/or efficiently Jamaica manages the reconstruction: whether there is a sufficiency of skills to do the job; and if education and skills training regimes are being adjusted to meet expected demands. Which assumes that it is known what these are, or will be.

Another development gives cause, and urgency, for this analysis: the Trump administration’s recent naming of Jamaica among 75 countries from which it has suspended the processing of immigrant visas, thus choking off some of Jamaica’s outward migration to the United States.

COMPLAINS OF SHORTAGE

Although the relative construction boom of recent years has slowed, the industry regularly complains of a shortage of skills despite the myriad training programmes run by the Government’s vocational and skills training agency, HEART/NSTA Trust. Indeed, at times, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has raised the prospect of importing labour to cover domestic shortfalls.

Data on how far the Government may have acted on the prime minister’s threat, or if HEART’s training efforts may have closed the gaps, are not readily available. However, HEART’s performance figures for the 2022-3 fiscal year suggest that construction skills ere not, like in previous years, the most enticing area of training among its recruits.

Indeed, of nearly 130,000 people enrolled in HEART’s training schemes, which was 11 per cent more than it planned, only 8.8 per cent were in construction programmes. Of the 51,541 trainees certified that year (105 per cent of projection), 10.4 per cent (5,310) were geared for the construction industry.

As usual, the largest portion (38.6 per cent) were trained for the general service sector, while 15.3 per cent were certified for jobs in the tourism industry and seven per cent in information and communication technology.

These numbers, on their face, don’t align with Minister Johnson Smith’s seeming suggestion that investors would find it relatively easy sailing in an environment conducive to massive investment. Jamaica’s shortage of skills (nearly seven in 10 workers have no special training for the jobs they do) is exacerbated by generally poor education students pass five subjects, inclusive of maths and English, in a single sitting, at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams. This is below the matriculation requirement for tertiary or university education outcomes, such as the fact that over a third of students complete their primary education without reaching the expected standard for literacy or that only 15 per cent of

With respect to the construction sector, Jamaica isn’t the only country or region, facing a shortage of skills.

SHORTFALL

Last year, for instance, the American Institute of Constructors (AIC) reported that the industry, based on US Census Bureau data, faced a shortfall of half a million workers “specifically individuals with skilled trades experience”. And the Associated General Contractors of America noted that 92 per cent of construction firms that were hiring reported “a hard time finding qualified workers”.

In Europe, it is projected that over two million construction workers, at all levels of the industry, will be needed by 2030 to close the gaps left by retirement, low entry into the sector, and the construction demands for a transition to a greener economy.

A critical driver of the issues faced by the construction sectors of North America and Europe are mirrored in Jamaica – and are captured in an analysis by the AIC.

“For decades, society has placed greater emphasis on academic-based career paths, such as those requiring higher levels of college education, while undervaluing vocational training and skilled trades,” it said.

These are almost hardwired perceptions in Jamaica, the poor outcomes in the academic orientation, notwithstanding. Recently, however, there has been much discussion about a re-imagination of the formal education system to provide more opportunities for, and lift the prestige of, vocational education and training.

The current situation should be a fillip to that approach.