Dear Editor,
The (St) Kittians have this saying: ‘You talk a lot, but you ain’t make no speech.’ The year-end press conference by the Minister of Labour, as reported in the press, may have earned such a riposte.
To have organised a presentation on employment or unemployment, while admitting in the same breath, the ministry’s inability to provide its own relevant statistics, can only be seen as a ‘talk a lot’ exercise, that was projected to transform into a ‘speech,’ but only on the completion of the 2012 census conducted by the Bureau of Statistics.
One crumb of information proffered was that of ‘4000 registered persons,’ nearly 3000 workers were placed in various (unnamed) sectors (KN, December 20). Then Kaieteur News followed with a curious non-sequitur: “The job areas that employers are seeking to fill” include “sales personnel, clerical staff and security personnel.”
KN’s reporter did not attempt to pursue enquiry into any juxtaposition between the suggested need for more UG graduates in IT, Mathematics and Natural Sciences, and what were the specifically identified needs of employers.
Turning to Stabroek News (December 20) one became more immediately engaged with the manner of ‘speech-making’ regarding the facility with which the aforementioned graduates are being absorbed into ‘the labour force.’ The descriptor ‘labour force’ is at least puzzling.
But then an inattentive reader would be distracted by the reference to training under the Board of Industrial Training (BIT), where all the “persons provided with skills are in high demand, resulting in most finding employment…”
Surely the Ministry of Labour would have the capacity to provide its own numbers at least for 2012 and 2013 (if only to prove job market growth). Further the BIT would be expected to categorically cite for 2013 the respective numbers of trainees, and the duration of the various programmes in the purported ‘skill’ areas: “engineering, masonry, block-making, electrical installation”; and as if these were for males only, women have been singled out for “cosmetology” and “clerical skills.”
A possible further depletion of the information pressed on reporters, is the total absence of mention of a single employer related to the BIT programmes. Note SN’s quote: “more and more persons are clamouring to the Ministry for workers.”
The reference to private sector initiatives was possibly intended to cover this void, however superficially.
Finally PT’s obfuscations would be enlightened by the fact that a disproportionate number of contracted employees are at the level of cleaners, office assistants and other under-skilled, deliberately making these workers vulnerable to termination by notice at any time, without explanation and without resource to redress. The sugar industry has no parallel situation.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
