Govt prepared to incentivise relocation of workers to combat labour shortages – VP

With massive labour needed to continue the country’s rapid development trajectory, the Guyana Government is ready to incentivise the local private sector to move workers from within the various administrative regions here in order to satisfy that demand.

The Government has been promoting labour mobility across the country to address the shortage of skilled workers. This was after it was recognised that the gap in skilled labour is mainly in those regions where massive development works are being executed while at the same time, there are scores of job-seekers in other outlying regions.

Consequently, Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo disclosed that the Government is willing to offer incentives to move workers to those development hotspots to fill the gap.

“We’re prepared to provide incentives to the private sector to offset the cost of moving labour from some of the other regions into the areas where we have a greater amount of investments and opportunities – in the short-term at least until we can migrate other types of business opportunities to those regions,” the Vice President told stakeholders at the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) Annual Awards held on Thursday evening in Georgetown.

According to the Vice President, the Government would eventually have to shift its migration policy.

“Our migration policy at this stage is more transactional than promoting the mass movement of people [from within the country] which, at some point in time when we reach full employment, that we may have to transition into,” he stated.

Nevertheless, the Guyana Government has been able to attenuate the tight labour market in recent months by allowing some amount of importation of skilled workers but Jagdeo explained that this is done carefully to not take away job opportunities from unemployed Guyanese, especially in those outlying regions.

“We’re very liberal in allowing people to bring in their workers but at the same time, we are keeping track of it because we want the people in other regions to have an opportunity to a job,” he posited.

Currently, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration is trying to expand the local supply of labour through aggressive training programmes such as the GOAL scholarships and BIT initiative as well as with the US$13 million training facility at Port Mourant in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) that is being used to equip locals with critical skills to work in the oil and gas sector, especially on offshore vessels.

However, in recent years, there has been a push by some local sectors to import the much-needed skilled labour to keep pace with the unprecedented growth in the country. But foreign workers are only being permitted to come here for certain projects.

For example, the India-funded Ogle, East Coast Demerara (ECD), to Eccles, East Bank Demerara (EBD) Bypass Road Project and the new Demerara River Bridge Project that is being undertaken by a Chinese contractor – China Railway and Construction Corporation (CRCC) Limited are some of the large-scale projects that have been given permission to import labour.

This publication understands that CRCC brought in Bangladeshi workers who had built the FIFA World Cup stadiums in Qatar last year. Since India is financing the bypass road, there is a stipulation that a certain per cent of Indians are contracted to workers on the project.

Meanwhile, in other areas, like the growing healthcare sector, the Guyana Government has authorised a private recruitment agency to bring in foreign healthcare workers with the view of addressing the severe skills shortage in the health sector – both in the public and private sectors.

Earlier this year, the Foreign Affairs Ministry approved Sigma Engineers Ltd Inc. to recruit healthcare workers from various countries including, but not limited to, Bangladesh.

This move was heavily criticised by the Opposition who accused the Government of not only trying to replace public servants but also giving foreign workers a better salary and, thus, a better way of life than Guyanese.

However, Vice President Jagdeo, at a press conference, assured that the remuneration packages for foreign labourers who are brought to work in Guyana’s public sector would not exceed that being received by public servants.