JAMAICA and Trinidad and Tobago are exploring the possibility of Port of Spain recruiting Jamaica workers for its booming construction sector – an initiative, if it takes hold, both countries hope, could provide a model for the expansion of the free movement of labour in the Caribbean Community (Caricom).

“We have started the process with Trinidad and Tobago, but, honestly, I cannot at this stage forecast the final outcome,” Jamaica’s foreign minister,” K D Knight, said in a telephone interview.

“Perhaps the idea may not get off the ground, for various reasons. Or, we might be pleasantly surprised that it would be implemented…”

The proposal could be an added impetus for HEART Trust, the government’s training agency, to step up its already aggressive campaign to attract school leavers to its skills training programmes.

Trinidad and Tobago’s economy has been on a strong growth path for the past decade, driven by expansion in the natural gas and manufacturing sectors.

More recently, the spiralling price of oil has given additional impetus to the economy, and has been driving construction.

Luxury homes, shopping malls and office complexes have been built in recent years and more are on the drawing board, as Trinidadians, with the support of their partners in the Caricom, vie for the headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Port of Spain is competing against Miami for the facility.

In fact, Prime Minister P J Patterson appears in a Trinidadian promotional video pitching for the FTAA headquarters. Among the things that Port of Spain has put on offer is a multi-storey twin-tower and a sprawling new metropolis adjacent to its capital.

The Trinidadians, however, have apparently been finding it difficult to recruit domestically the amount of skilled construction workers to meet current and expected demand, and have been shopping around the region for a workable programme under which to imported needed labour.

Already, a handful of categories of skilled workers, as well as graduates of the University of the West Indies (UWI), are supposed to have the right to live and work in Caricom member states without having to comply with work permit requirements, but some countries have been slow in implementing the necessary regulations.

The broader issues of the free movement of labour also remains to be trashed out as part of the move to the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME).

In the meantime, though, the Trinidadians have being examining short-term options for the construction sector, based on a proposal first floated by the country’s trade and industry minister, Ken Valley.

Valley disclosed at the weekend that the idea was been examined by a cabinet sub-committee, chaired by the labour minister, Lenny Saith, and including involvement from the private sector.

The initiative, Valley said, had broadened beyond Jamaica to involve other Caricom states, to recruit workers in construction and related industries where “there continues to be an evident shortage”.

This issue of the recruitment of the movement of foreigners has at times been a touchy issue in the Caribbean and is currently part of a sharp debate in Barbados about the presence of the Guyanese in that country.

The issue of Guyanese in Trinidad and Tobago has also caused debate in the latter country, but the Trinidadians have been attempting to overcome potential wrinkles by involving the private sector in analysing the state of the labour market.

Criticisms or objections to the idea of the regional recruitment of skilled labour would be “premature to the overall scheme under consideration,” Valley said.

Jamaicans have in recent years increasingly found jobs in the Eastern Caribbean, particularly in Antigua. But most of these workers are either white collar professionals or tourism workers who go with substantial skills learned on the job.

But there have been complaints in Jamaica of insufficiently trained and skilled workers in the building trades and other professions, causing HEART to step up its training, primarily to meet local demand for projected requirement in alumina sector where plants are to be expanded.

HEART officials could not be contacted at the weekend for comment.

Knight, however, said that there were workers in Jamaica, as in other Caricom states, with skills in the construction trade, who could be recruited on a contractual basis for specific jobs elsewhere in the region.

– With Rickey Singh in Bridgetown, Barbados.

See Singh’s column on the problems of the free movement of labour in Caricom the columns section.