MINISTER of Tourism Edmund Bartlett has set his sights on better pay for workers in the booming hospitality sector, but he has made it clear that there will be no move by the Government to mandate this.

“We don’t direct the market and we don’t determine what the market actually does. But the labour market arrangement within tourism is now being reviewed and we are looking at, not legislatively, but what we are looking at are operational activities to guide how we develop human capital within the tourism sector and the competencies that are going to be required,” said Bartlett at a post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House on Wednesday.

“Where tourism is going, then, is to create the transition from the low wage characterisation that we know of, and that transition will happen by the labour market arrangements that we are trying to put in place.

“It is very, very important to understand that it is not a legislative arrangement… [for] those who believe you must put a law for everything. It is going to be a market-driven engagement. But it is such the right thing to do because a qualified, certified worker is a far more productive worker and a productive worker enhances the profitability of the company in the long run, so everybody wins,” added Bartlett.

He said his ministry has embarked on a scheme to increase the training, certification, and classification of workers in the tourism industry.

“A team has been established that is actually working on the labour market challenge. This has been worked on since 2017 when the tourism ministry started working on the building of human capital,” said Bartlett.

He noted that in 2017 the ministry established the Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation (JCTI) which is a pathway certification entity that enables competent workers in the industry, who have no paper qualification, to be certified.

“And by their certification [they] are able to have mobility within the organisation, but more importantly, to have portability so that they can leave from Jamaica and work anywhere in the world, and I think that is the first key step towards the transformation of the labour market,” Bartlett told the media briefing.

He also pointed to a training programme now in place for students in secondary schools who can achieve an associate degree in hotel management and customer service by the time they graduate.

According to Bartlett, under that programme, which is in place in 34 schools across the island, almost 400 students graduated the last time around.

“They are now entering the labour market as certified personnel. That’s how you change the labour market. That’s how you remove the six-month, three-month contract arrangement. That’s how you build capacity for a sustainable growth of workers in the industry,” said Bartlett, who on Tuesday used his contribution to the 2024/25 Sectoral Debate to share numbers on the strong growth of the industry since last year.

Bartlett told Parliament that for 2023/24 fiscal year the industry is estimated to have recorded gross earnings of around US$4.38 billion, a 9.6 per cent increase compared to the previous fiscal year.

He also announced that the country earned US$1.27 billion from the tourism industry in the first three months of 2024.

Bartlett noted that the revenue came from 1.34 million visitors to the island between January and March.

“That represents 788,000 stopovers or a 7.4 per cent increase. Cruise has come back — 554,560 cruisers — representing a 16.1 per cent increase over the corresponding three months last year,” Bartlett told the House.