The labour ministry says a number of Jamaicans continue to be fleeced of thousands of dollars by unregistered recruiters offering them jobs in the United States and Canada, and has advised citizens not to do business with these persons.

According to a ministry spokesman, approximately 60 such agencies have sprung up across the island, particularly in the last two years, to take advantage of the increasing number of persons who are seeking hotel and farm jobs overseas.

However, the ministry apart, there are only seven other licensed recruiters across the island.

“These persons are being exploited by the recruiters,” Barrington Bailey, the labour ministry’s senior director of manpower services, told the Observer. “Some are even robbed of large sums of cash as they pay the recruiters for the jobs,” he added.

Bailey said among the unregistered recruiters are “briefcase operators”, some of whom run newspaper advertisements, giving out only their telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, as they promise jobs in hotels in the US or on cruise ships. Some of the recruiters, he said, target holders of valid US and Canadian visitors’ visas.

Some of the recruiters, Bailey said, claim to have ties within the labour ministry. “. And when they do this they may also produce fake documents such as application forms to back their claims.”

He added: “As we try to crack down on them, they change their addresses and telephone numbers and their clients sometimes can’t even help us with evidence, as no longer do the recruiters collect the cash in their hands, but the clients are now sent to lodge the fees in the bank.”

He said although a few persons have been fortunate to get jobs through the illegal recruiters, the practice is dangerous as these persons normally do not fulfil the requirements of the overseas employers.

“The ministry has an organised programme where persons’ criminal records are checked and they are required to do a medical check-up before they are put on the programme,” he explained. “But I can’t say the same things apply for those illegal recruiters.”

“Anybody can go to the illegal recruiters as they do not have a set standard,” Bailey added.

But Bailey said the problem goes even further, because should someone from the illegal agencies commit an offence while in the US or Canada, this could have serious repercussions for the legitimate programmes.

“It is a cause for concern because things like these can destroy the programme,” he told the Observer.

Many Jamaicans have sought jobs in the Overseas Employment Programme ever since it began with the farmwork programme in the 1960s.

In the hotel programme, women are typically employed in housekeeping, but many also work as waitresses, cooks and bartenders. Men are employed to work mainly as housemen, bellmen, porters, groundsmen, golf course workers and cooks.

The programme is now a major source of foreign exchange, as workers have been contributing more than US$36 million annually to the Jamaican economy since 2001, through compulsory deductions by the government. This figure, however, does not include the millions of dollars in remittances the workers send back to the island or the cash they take home after their nine-month stint.

According to the labour ministry, the programme has bounced back steadily from the 9/11 slump, which saw hundreds of hotel workers being sent home early as a result of the downturn in the US economy.

Debbie Tyson, the ministry’s public relations officer, said employment figures were pointing to pre-9/11 standings and the ministry expected to reach higher targets this year.

She said there were approximately 14,000 Jamaican workers on the Overseas Employment Programme in the US and Canada.