MINISTER of Tourism Edmund Bartlett says the recruitment of local skilled tourism workers by foreign companies continues to be a crippling factor for the industry.

Bartlett, who was opening the 2023/24 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, said maintaining a sustainable supply of skilled labour is a major issue for the tourism industry.

“We recognise that to be a global challenge; it is well known Jamaica has been impacted by this problem as our local and foreign investment partners seek to employ local workers in their organisations in a bid to realise returns,” he said.

He argued that the solution is to ensure that skilled labour supply is appropriately aligned “to a fully developed compensation strategy that is designed to attract and retain the best of the labour force”.

“Achieving this type of harmony is the pathway to resolving a very crippling issue of the industry, which will only become worse as the expansion of the sector continues apace. We continue to make solid advancements in filling some of the gaps through private and public sector efforts; however, some of these issues persist and innovative solutions will have to be found and fast-tracked,” he said.

He further argued that as workers continue to be trained, certified and develop more skills, they would need to be classified then remunerated according to these classifications so that the industry becomes more attractive.

“Whilst we are not making a call about bringing in foreign workers or anything like that, we are making the point that we will have to ensure that the capacity to deliver and the demand that this [COVID-19] recovery is presenting is here in Jamaica and we do not lose out because of human capital disruptions,” he said.

In the meantime, he said the Government has been upskilling and certifying thousands of tourism workers as well as high school students through various programmes in collaboration with local and international partners.

“Last year alone, we certified over 3,000 candidates who were 94 per cent successful in their certification programme.”

He noted as well that in the first five years of the programme under the Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation, more than 10,000 tourism industry workers were certified in various categories.

Bartlett noted that one of the strategies the Government has put in place to retain more tourism workers is the “revolutionary tourism workers pension plan”, which was started in 2022. “In less than a year, we have had 8,000 hospitality workers already paying in the scheme.

Additionally, he said:”In collaboration with our partners, we are looking at 2,500 houses that are currently being built and will be completed in the next five years for workers of the tourism industry,” he said.

He said these are in addition to several other housing projects which were previously being developed.