David Salmon | Crises to confront in 2024

If there is one thing that Jamaica is exceptionally good at it is a delayed response to confronting long-standing issues. Despite that, the year 2024 will be pivotal as the country will have to face a multiplicity of challenges to achieve development. Given the crossroads that we are at in our history, addressing these challenges will be of paramount importance.

LABOUR SHORTAGES

Multiple individuals, including Prime Minister Andrew Holness, have identified labour shortages as a pressing problem. Jamaica’s unemployment rate declining to a historic low of 4.5 per cent is significant as a decade ago, it was at a staggering 14.9 percent. Now the question being asked is, “What next?”

The Government has identified improvements in productivity through workforce upskilling as the new priority. Unfortunately, Jamaica’s economy has so far been built on labour-intensive industries that require limited skills. I say “unfortunately” because these industries are not designed to achieve improvements in productivity.

Let’s take tourism as an example. The industry directly employs 175,000 Jamaicans and countless others indirectly. However, the country no longer has the supply of workers to satisfy this industry’s labour demands. Yet Tourism Minister Edmond Bartlett has identified the need for at least 45,000 additional workers over the next five to 10 years as the country aims to attract eight million visitors to the island.

The clichéd recommendation to secure more workers is to increase wages. Although to the contrary, the prime minister noted that continued increases in salaries without improvements in productivity is not sustainable. But have we ever asked whether the problem is the type of industries we specialise in?

According to 2019 International Monetary Fund Working Paper 19/74, less sophisticated sectors, including tourism, are not conducive to continuous productivity gains. The paper even questioned whether current growth could be maintained since tourism is not favourable to the development of new goods and technologies.

This should not be surprising as no new technology is needed for cooking, hosting parties, or serving meals. Perhaps a musician can play faster, but I don’t think this is going to achieve the desired improvements in productivity.

In light of these observations and the current worker shortages, Jamaica needs to shift to more productive and technology-centred industries. Thankfully, the Government has started to tackle this issue, with HEART/NSTA Trust being a vanguard for continued skills development. Skills and Digital Transformation Minister Dana Morris-Dixon deserves commendations in this regard. Nevertheless, a whole-of-government approach would be required to realise needed economic transformation.

AGEING POPULATION

Jamaica’s ageing population is a problem that has slowly boiled and bubbled to the attention of some policymakers. From as early as 2019, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton acknowledged that the population of persons aged 60 and older was expected to double from 11. 7 per cent in 2011 to 23 per cent in 2050. With more families opting to have fewer than two children, our population is expected to decline.

This means that Jamaica is facing a crisis that has seldom happened in the history of the world - a developing country experiencing high emigration, reduced birth rates, and an ageing population without the economic base to support that population. Solving each of these issues requires a Herculean effort. When combined, it is an almost Sisyphean task.

And yes, having fewer children is a problem. If not addressed, it can lead to reduced growth, a rise in the retirement age, and an increase in taxes to provide added expenditure for our healthcare system, which is currently not designed to support an elderly population.

The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) recognises that pro-natal policies such as giving tax benefits to parents who have more children have worked in countries such as Poland although the caveat is that they come with a very hefty price tag. One could argue that the other alternative is to reduce the country’s cost of living. Considering that a major source of inflation is linked to imported food and fuel, our cost of living is largely outside of the Government’s control.

No easy solutions exist, but one fact that remains is that economic growth must remain a priority in order to secure more resources to improve the country’s standard of living. Improving liveability is one strategy that can encourage less emigration and parents having more children.

ECOLOGICAL BREAKDOWN

A major component of liveability is the country’s physical environment. There is no doubt that construction is booming islandwide. Since several developmental projects have been completed or are in the planning process, it is useful to examine the implications of these initiatives on the environment.

New stretches of highways have opened from May Pen to Williamsfield and from Harbour View to Yallahs, and further planned projects include the Port Antonio bypass and the Morant Bay urban centre. With these new projects, urbanisation will expand along these thoroughfares.

This would require further planning and environmental management, which is an area of focus in which we often underperform. Researchers such as Laleta Davis-Mattis revealed from as far back as the early 2000s that insufficient or inadequate infrastructure and a reliance on tourism have contributed to coastal destruction and pollution.

This trend is seen even today where in December 2023, Negril residents lamented the decades-long pollution of the town’s coastal waters believed to be caused by a sewage treatment plant owned the National Water Commission (NWC). That same month, the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) concluded that another defective NWC sewage plant caused a Christmas Eve fish kill in St Catherine.

It is bad enough that the NWC is presenting fish kills as gifts to residents. But this is even worse when considering how the NEPA’s attempts at environmental protection has more holes than Swiss cheese. In fact, the agency has been criticised for its delayed response and lukewarm explanation of issues. If we are going to address our environmental crisis, the NEPA needs to rethink its approach. As to planning, once again, the silo-driven method to policymaking is inadequate given the pertinent and multifaceted nature of our current situation.

SOCIETAL BREAKDOWN

This is the gravest but most discussed crisis facing Jamaica. It is easy to ramble on and on about this, Howard Mitchell best elucidated this issue in an October 2023 Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica Hall of Fame address.

He told the gathering: “We are in grave danger of failure as a nation, as a society, as a community of souls … we steep ourselves in the culture of piracy and mayhem and theft, which is so ingrained in our beginnings but will be the cause of the end of us as a functional society… and we blame it on everything but our own refusal to establish for ourselves the values and attitudes that are critical to survival and to true prosperity.”

Nevertheless, Jamaica has demonstrated the ability to coordinate and cooperate when crises arise. We saw this with the bipartisan effort to address our economic maelstrom in the 2000s, and we see this today with the PSOJ Project STAR Initiative to promote social renewal. This demonstrates that partnership is the pathway forward.

2024 is a new year with old problems. Jamaica now needs to demonstrate its adaptability as it deals with these crises headlong. The current leadership is up to the task. Time will tell if this hope is justified.

David Salmon is Jamaica’s 2023 Rhodes Scholar. Send feedback to davidsalmon@live.com.