High employment costs as a percentage of the overall operating costs of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) point unerringly at the bind in which the sugar industry finds itself as it chases a 2011 production target of less then 300,000 tonnes, which is what senior industry officials have said is the minimum requirement to make real economic sense.
The industry’s operating costs, set out in 2009-2018 Strategic Blueprint that seeks to assess “the present state of the industry” point to the unquestionable sustainability of the status quo. Between 2005 and 2009, labour costs totalled approximately 57 per cent of the company’s overall operating costs and accounted for US11-12 cents in a period when the international spot rate for sugar was between US12-13 cents per pound. What this meant in real terms was that what GuySuCo earned on the world market from sugar sales was, in effect, barely enough to cover labour costs.
The burden of high employment costs is the legacy of a complex wages structure which, particularly in the
