ONE of the most difficult messages to communicate effectively, without harbouring cynicism in sections of our much-touted two-party system, is that the present crisis in global competition has led to crippling reversals in capital flows, export earnings, remittance levels, and job market prospects of developing countries like Jamaica.

In other words, in today’s globalised world, it does not matter whether the affected countries once boasted successful fiscal management and prudent monetary policies that led to impressive growth rates and employment levels. In the world as we know it, there is no other factor with the same intensity affecting the character of the global economy than that of globalisation.

So pernicious is this issue that it has resulted in the deepest integration and longest downturn in the world economy since the Great Depression, whereby a major financial downturn in the richest economy on the planet is bound to have serious implications for every other country.

Quite naturally, as this crisis deepens, we can expect job creation, along with the adequate provision of resources for social services like education, housing, social protection for the most vulnerable, and retirement savings, to inevitably become casualties of global inequality and imbalance.

The United States, for example, has already lost close to 2.5 million jobs, even while it loses some 600,000 each month. Predictions are that there will be a shortfall of another two to three million jobs before any prospect of a recovery is realised.

In our own backyard, 215,000 Jamaicans are currently jobless, representing an unemployment rate of 16.3 per cent, with women accounting for 21.3 per cent, compared to 12 per cent for men.

What is the real point in all of this for our policy determiners, implementers, and the society at large?

In the first place, we are reminded that joblessness is a debilitating reality in Jamaica today in much the same way it has become the ‘new normal’ in much of Europe and a significant portion of the western world. The crisis of global unemployment is real.

In light of this, there is the pressing need for the Government to face this stubborn reality squarely and commit to working assiduously in exploring a whole variety of innovative ways of bringing our economy around to sustainable, robust and equitable growth.

And given the state of the economy, much of this will have to take place in tandem with the prevailing advice given to us by the IMF about what to do with our financial system.

When former Prime Minister Bruce Golding first promised Jamaicans “jobs, jobs, jobs” while on the husting during the general election campaign of 2007, there was no mention that this promise would have been accompanied by a proper scientific study into the needs of the local labour market upon his party being elected into office.

It was the present labour and social security minister, Derrick Kellier, upon his appointment, who operationalised the idea that it is the way we organise our human resources to exploit job opportunities and create value that is of fundamental importance to overcoming the crisis of joblessness. Putting our human resources to work to produce output in any part of the world where the opportunities for employment exist, Kellier insists, is fundamental to the success of this strategy.

In demonstration of this new policy outlook, he became the first labour minister in Jamaica’s post-independence history to extend the reach of the 69-year-old US-Jamaica overseas employment programme beyond the United States Eastern Seaboard to Brewster, Okanogan County, in the Evergreen state of Washington, USA, in search of jobs for Jamaican men and women.

From all indications, his official visit was timely, because the state’s 102-year-old 10,000-acres Gebbers Farms, with the benefit of innovative technology and partnership with Chelan Fruits, is now busy preparing an additional 2,000 acres to accommodate cherries and a new variety of apples, including organic fruits.

This expansion project, we are told, is going to require an additional 1,000 workers for harvesting and packaging within the next 12-15 months; and Kellier was assured by the large corporate orchard owners and numerous state officials he met that they will be looking to Jamaican workers to fill this quota. This will significantly improve the number of Jamaicans currently employed in the US-Jamaica overseas work programme from its current level of 5,600.

Given the challenges of globalisation, Kellier has adopted the same outward expansionary approach vis-à-vis the 60-year-old Canada-Jamaica overseas work programme. Some 7,800 Jamaicans are currently working in Canada in the seasonal agricultural, hospitality and skills trade programme, and the plan by the labour minister is to increase this number to 12,500 within the next 12 months.

Indications are that there is every reason to believe that this quota will be met. Commenting on the minister’s visit to Canada at the beginning of this month for talks with employers on plans to expand the programme, the October 2 edition of the Times-Advocate newspaper of Southwestern Ontario quoted Friedhelm Hoffman, owner of Exeter Produce that employs some 65 Jamaican workers, as saying: “We couldn’t do it without them.” His reference was to the quality of work of the Jamaicans.

Despite the criticisms of the Government’s job creation initiatives, the fact remains that overcoming the scourge of unemployment in Jamaica is going to involve a national effort.

But that effort will forever be thwarted if we persist in the misguided belief that the Government’s varying policy and strategic responses to the crisis are designed to solve, in one fell swoop, the country’s unemployment problem. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For whether we like it or not, solving Jamaica’s crisis of joblessness in the new globalised dispensation is going to involve the transformation of our family planning practices. And close on the heels of this necessity must be a new approach to parenting involving far greater involvement of fathers and mothers in the guidance and career choices of their children.

In this regard, Jamaica may have to revise completely how it approaches the whole business of population growth. Talk about “jobs, jobs, jobs” will have to be accompanied equally by talk about “skills, skills, skills”.

In this climate, there must be greater emphasis and resources dedicated to a comprehensive data-driven and evidenced-based study of the needs of the labour market.

To his credit, Kellier has made great strides in this area within his ministry, having tabled in Parliament earlier this year the publication titled: Labour Market Study 2012 – A Guide to Employment Opportunities in Jamaica.

And those interested in overcoming the phenomenon of our social anguish rooted in stalling opportunities for self-development, should note also that Jamaican workers’ spectacular breakthrough in filling the gaps in Canada for heavy duty tractor drivers is another example of the labour minister’s appreciation for data-driven analysis in determining the optimal deployment of human resources.

If globalisation has taught us anything, it is that when the ‘meat’ we possess is raw, we must go in search of the fire.