KINGSTON, Jamaica-Minister of Labour and Social Security Pearnel Charles Jr has announced the establishment of a National Skills Bank to better match jobs with available skills locally.

He said the initiative is a collaborative approach across ministries of government and “an all-encompassing database designed for us to identify Jamaicans and to identify where do we have the labour shortages and where do we have any mismatched skillset allocation.”

Charles Jr made the announcement Tuesday during his contribution to the 2025/26 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives.

“It will effectively guide and redirect workforce planning; it’s going to help us to forecast future demand for skills and help us to lead in a way in terms of creating and upskilling and cross-skilling culture,” the minister said.

Charles Jr shared that his ministry was working with the HEART/NSTA Trust and across government to establish the database. He urged his fellow Members of Parliament to ensure that they have a list of all individuals in their various constituencies who either have the potential or actual skill and who need the support to be matched between skill and jobs.

Meanwhile, Charles also told the House that the work permit regime is being improved under the so-called Operation Streamline system, which he described as a “bold and strategic initiative aimed at improving the work permit system in Jamaica”.

He stated that the launch aimed to remove backlogs and boost efficiency.

To date, it has addressed multiple permits that were more than eight weeks behind while “providing an enhanced pathway to really getting it done”, said the labour minister.

He emphasised that “work permits are not issued to displace Jamaicans but rather to bring into Jamaica critical skills that lead many times to local job creation and local job training and certification”.

He gave as a key example German Ship Repair in Jamaica, a shipyard in Rockfort, east Kingston, where foreign nationals were brought in and given work permits.

“Over the last year we saw a significant transfer of knowledge to several Jamaicans coming out of HEART, coming out of CMU (Caribbean Maritime University), enhancing Jamaica’s labour force through the support of the work permit system,” the minister said.

He said his ministry remains committed to monitoring and enforcing all businesses and requests that they comply with the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens Act.

“Our inspectors are out to ensure adherence to the rule of law in our country,” he remarked. He said that under Operation Streamline, a fully digitised application system will be implemented during the current financial year.

“This will see us eliminating a lot of the concerns and reducing paperwork and improving the turnaround time for processing [work permits], with clear service standards,” Charles Jr said.