PRIME Minister Dr Andrew Holness is urging Jamaican men, especially youngsters involved with gangs, to leave behind the life of crime and seize opportunities emerging from the country’s ongoing economic transformation.

He also warned that shortages in key areas of the labour force could seriously hinder the Jamaica’s development and growth over the next decade.

“One of the challenges we face as a country is we simply are not able to, for the next decade, identify the labour force that will be necessary to carry the growth. I’ve never said it in this way before, but I’m saying it this way now because it is a real problem. It’s a problem that you’re going to feel the crunch in the next decade, even though you’re starting to see it now, but, it is something that we have to really, really, really think about,” a concerned Holness said.

Speaking at the official ground breaking for the US$80-million Westlands Expansion Project at Kingston Freeport Terminal Limited, Port Bustamante in Kingston, the prime minister said the country is at a turning point, and the workforce needed to support its growth is being blocked by crime, violence, and an entrenched gang culture.

“I would want to see all of those youngsters in the inner city — and I see so many of them who are caught up in this gang culture, in this thug culture — we want you to come and work here, we want you to become the crane operators, the stevedores, the managers, the accountants, the people who operate the software and who get involved in logistics,” he added.

Referencing the employment opportunities that are expected when the expansion project is completed, he warned that many young men, especially those in inner-city communities, are missing the chance to enter high-paying, in-demand industries due to their involvement in crime and their resistance to formal work environments.

“When we put in the other 15 hectares of new space to put in new containers, we’re going to need more people to work here and where are they? They are in the gangs, toting guns. We are losing our human resource, which could be very useful here, and these are not low-paying jobs. And when you present the options to them to say, ‘Come, we’ll train you, we’ll give you the stipend to come and get trained,’ they have been so caught up in the gang world that their attitude is not good enough; it is a barrier to their progress,” he explained.

Holness argued that while poverty and inequality have contributed to criminal activity, the time has come for society to stop justifying violence and take a firmer stance in dealing with those who disrupt national progress.

“Yes, there must be no compromise on human rights, but that doesn’t say you must not be firm and decisive and instrumental in dealing with crime and violence, because that firm and instrumental approach will not only be beneficial to you, but it is also beneficial to that youngster,” he said.

The prime minister called for a change in mindset nationally, and personal responsibility, and criticised aspects of popular culture that, in his view, glorifies criminal behaviour and discourages youth from joining the workforce.

“They take a negative attitude — an anti-social attitude — towards work and what that does, it locks them into that for the rest of their lives. And, some of the social commentary reinforces and supports them there without realising that they are doing them a disservice, when the social commentary should be encouraging them to come out of crime, put down the gun, put down the thug lifestyle, and go and find a work,” he said.