Train before you drain
JHTA wants overseas hotel recruiters to invest in schooling Jamaicans
Published:Monday | March 14, 2022 | 12:07 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
STAKEHOLDERS IN Jamaica’s tourism industry are calling on the Government to intervene and stem the rapid recruitment of skilled workers by their foreign counterparts.
In 2019, the tourism sector contributed 9.8 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product and was poised for an even better output in 2020, with projections of US$4.4 billion in revenue. But the COVID-19 containment measures, including border closures, triggered the shuttering of many hotel operations that affected 170,000 direct jobs.
According to Clifton Reader, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), several generations of the industry’s skilled labour force have migrated following the economic fallout from the coronavirus-induced disruption to the travel and leisure industry.
He said instead of sitting by and allowing the continuous recruiting of the country’s skilled workers by foreign players, the Government should consider partnering with them to establish hospitality training institutions here.
“I strongly believe and recommend that the Government should ask the cruise ships and other land-based people who are coming to check into our hotels and are soliciting and taking our best workers to themselves to set up training institutions here or assist the Government with the training of our workers so that we can put out more people,” Reader said.
Reader, who is also managing director at Moon Palace Jamaica resort, said if the Government intervenes and that agreement is reached, “there will be enough workers here in Jamaica to replace those who will be recruited overseas”.
The JHTA president noted that there are benefits to be gleaned from hospitality workers who get jobs overseas.
“That’s good for the workers, and that’s good for employers in certain ways because when they come back, they also come back as well-trained workers who are also more disciplined,” said Reader.
Last December, the Jamaica Tourist Board reported that 80,000 direct and indirect jobs have been restored as the industry recovers from the impact of the pandemic.
Reader said some 75 per cent of the workers are back.
“We are still short some workers; we are making do,” he said. “Some hotels have put on mass-recruitment seminars and we are getting people.”