Member of Parliament for St Mary Western, the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Robert Montague, says the Government must seriously consider training certain groups of Jamaican workers for the export market.

While he made the call during his recent contribution to the 2023/24 State of the Constituency Debate in the House of Representatives, Montague, who is also Chairman of the JLP, has articulated this position for decades, from the time he was the lone JLP councillor in the then St Mary Parish Council, now St Mary Municipal Corporation.

During his constituency debate presentation, Montague said it was time for the Jamaican Government to “sit down with the US Department of Education and Labour and identify gaps in their economic programme and negotiate an agreement.

The agreement, Montague explained, would see the US authorities paying for, or contributing to the training of specific skills, “and make the persons available to them on a contracted basis”.

Specifically, Montague said teachers and nurses, who leave by the hundreds each year for better paying jobs in the United States and the United Kingdom, would be part of such a programme. He said focus should also be placed on medical support staff, police, skilled tradesmen and women.

“For example, our Ministry of Labour should be asking the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to talk to Homeland Security (in the United States), so that we can provide the 2,000 masons and 1,500 welders and 500 truck drivers that will be needed to help build the new wall on sections of the Southern border. This is an opportunity worth pursuing,” said Montague.