THE implementation of the Caribbean Single Market (CSM) on January 1 has widened the job market, presenting Jamaicans with more opportunities for employment.

LLOYD... Workers in Jamaica need to be re-skilled, retrained and certified.

With the opening up of markets, the opportunities for the expansion of businesses and the creation of new ones have also increased.

Local institutions have welcomed the initiative, which had been in discussion since 1989 when CARICOM heads, in Grand Anse, Grenada, took the decision to further deepen the integration process by establishing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

It is seen as having the potential to create a multiplicity of opportunities for Jamaicans as well as other Caribbean nationals, and give the region the necessary trade tools to compete alongside the other 194 trading blocs in the world.

Robert Gregory, executive director of the HEART Trust/NTA, said the CSM is an initiative which should be taken seriously by all Jamaicans.
"With the CSM, the Jamaican job market has expanded to become a Caribbean job market," explains Gregory.

"The promise of the CSM and eventually of the CSME, is that all the skilled and certified members of the Jamaican and CARICOM workforce will now have access to the entire CARICOM as a single market. This means a multiplicity of opportunities for the skilled and certified workers," he added.
He urged Jamaicans to seize the opportunities that come with the opening of the market.

"This is a tremendous opportunity and it should be taken very, very seriously. Imagine opportunities being multiplied threefold and that is essentially what it is. Here it is that we were operating in a local market, which has been joined up with other markets to form a regional market. So this is an opening up of a field of opportunities for us and it should be taken very seriously or be left behind," he said.

A concern for many is how long workers will take to get used to the idea of the CSM and its benefits. Gregory points out that although workers could take longer than expected or needed, once movement gets under way, people will catch on.

"I hope not too long, but once people see formal movement they will spread the word to others that there is a formal structure without any need to hide and they can move about the region as certified workers and by 2008 should be able to move freely around the region," Gregory said.
But what does Jamaica have to offer?
According to Gregory, one asset firmly in Jamaica's favour is its large economy.

"Jamaica has the largest economy in the CSM, with the largest variety of job opportunities that exist in the Caribbean. With that we have much to offer in this partnership," he pointed out.

Executive director of the Jamaica Employers' Federation (JEF), Jacqueline Coke-Lloyd, said Jamaica had much to offer to the labour force in the CSM.
"We are a very creative set of people, Jamaicans are known worldwide for their creativity, spirit and tenacity, so Jamaicans going to other countries will be seen as a group of persons who add value. What we also offer is our own ability to understand what it means and takes to survive. So we bring a sense of knowing to the other Caribbean islands," Lloyd said.

But Lloyd said there is a concern among Jamaicans of possible threats of job loss to incoming Caribbean nationals. She assures, however, that although these threats may be real, workers should have nothing to fear once they prepare themselves for the competition.

"Jamaicans will feel threatened once they are not prepared," she explained. "The CSM is an opportunity; if they are unprepared they can't take advantage of it and will feel threatened with other people coming into the country."
However, she cited the European Union (EU) as evidence of people not moving from country to country in droves and said to same could happen with the CSM.

"The EU did not see a lot of cross-border movement and that could become the situation in the Caribbean where people may not move as much as we are thinking," she said.

"However, workers in Jamaica should prepare themselves, they need to be re-skilled, retrained and certified," she added.
Gregory, in the meanwhile, stresses that workers and employers should not feel threatened but realise that they are now competing with a larger group of people.

"They are now joining the Caribbean workforce, therefore they ought to be conscious of this and prepare themselves to compete in this new wider environment. There is nothing to be wary about. This is the nature of life in the 21st Century. Countries compete, economies compete, individuals compete, therefore it behoves them to be life-long learners and be at the cutting edge," he said.

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