Business leaders across various sectors have lauded the Government’s decision to bolster the incentives provided through the HEART/NSTA programme, describing it as a pivotal step towards addressing labour shortage issues currently being faced by the country.

That, combined with discussions regarding the importation of labour into the island, is expected to alleviate some of the skills shortage gap.

While business leaders unanimously agree that offering better wages is also essential to attract and retain highly skilled professionals in the local workforce, they contend that improving living conditions will be even more attractive.

“The incentives that the prime minister announced under the HEART Trust/NTA programme are going to capture the interest of people. But, regardless, it is very difficult for a job mixing cement to compete with a job in scamming,” Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President Metry Seaga said.

“One earns 25,000 per week and the other earns $250,000 per week. What we have to do is put stiffer penalties in place for illicit activities,” he argued.

Seaga was speaking at the Sagicor Investments Money Talks Forum, Budget Review and Investment Opportunities last week.

Building on the decision to remove tuition fees for all HEART programmes up to level 4, the Andrew Holness Administration says it will grant every successful graduate of a level 4 trade programme a cheque valued at $50,000 to help with the acquisition of trade tools, effective April 1, 2024.

Additionally, the HEART/NSTA Trust will work alongside the National Housing Trust (NHT) and its development partners in an ‘on-the-job training’ programme. In addition to sharpening their skills, participants are expected to benefit from the provision of safety equipment, small tools and other learning aids under the programme.

Holness said participants will be paid a stipend at a special HOPE workers rate for two years. Additionally, successful participants will be awarded the equivalent of two years’ points towards accessing their NHT benefit.

“In a business, I can tell that it’s very difficult to get a plant manager, a plumber, an electrician or an engineer. It’s just very difficult to find committed people who want to work. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter what the salary is at this point, because salaries have gone up and continue to go up. Some are just looking for better living conditions,” Seaga said.

“Eighty per cent of the people that leave university are going away to live. That’s a statistic I heard the other day and it really blew my mind. The key is to write our laws to allow labour to come in to transfer the knowledge and then let them go back out,” the PSOJ president argued.

Jamaica’s economy, which slumped by as much as 11 per cent in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, has recovered strongly, growing by 8.2 per cent in 2021/22 and 3.5 per cent in the 2022/23 fiscal years. That recovery is projected to continue, albeit at the slower 2.0 per cent in the current 2023/24 fiscal year. Jobs have followed the recovery, pushing the unemployment rate down to a historic low 4.2 per cent. Currently, more than 1.3 million Jamaicans are working, the highest number of gainfully employed people since labour market data have been tracked.

The rise in the number of people employed across the island is partly attributable to the increase in wage levels, Prime Minister Holness said, and more people are seeing the benefit of joining the formal economy.

“The labour issue is a real issue. There are people in rural communities who face problems securing a job in their town and may have to move in Kingston. We scour the entire island of Jamaica trying to find these people, but when you do find them, it’s always a matter of where do you house them and do they get transportation to and from work,” Seaga said.

“The investment in the country cannot be Kingston-centric or Montego Bay-centric, it has to be islandwide and so this HEART programme is good for building talent across the island,” he said.