‘From banana chips to microchips’

With hundreds of deaths and an almost-crippled economy, Jamaica’s brush with the COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionised the country’s employment and economic landscape, and its leadership should take note and adapt.

This was a charge issued by Dr Andre Haughton, senior economic lecturer at the University of the West Indies, during a COVID-19 conference hosted by the Manpower & Maintenance Services Limited Group in St Andrew last week.

The conference, dubbed ‘Lest We Forget: A Time Like No Other – Lessons From COVID-19’, was held last Wednesday and Thursday.

“We are beginning to understand that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of new avenues and new approaches have not emerged that are not competing for the labour that companies like Manpower require,” said Haughton, the opposition spokesman on science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

“And as a result, it is going to have an impact on your compensation packages, your training, your ability to maintain top professionals to carry out a lot of the task,” said Haughton, noting that several of his economic students, despite pursuing a college education, are hopeful of earning money via social media platforms and online streaming.

He said that today, online platforms offer individuals a chance to create their own realities, change their images, and reach millions as they do it. The power of such interaction is among the several lessons that the world, and Jamaica, in particular, has learned.

“So the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the world closer to the future than it would be if there were no impetus,” he said, citing the artificial intelligence boom which has shortened the time students, for example, spend on research and thus increases academic productivity.

Despite the current developments, several manifestations in tourism, bauxite, and free zone operations, and at least two oil price calamities since the 1970s, Jamaica continues to be slow on the draw.

“Since then, Jamaica hasn’t really learned because we continue to rely on the same sort of energy situation that we’ve had over the last 70 years. We have not evolved into producing electricity at a cheaper rate through means that are less import dependent,” he charged. “And if we cannot fix the energy issue, it makes it very difficult to fix our other productivity issues. That is unless we look at manufacturing that doesn’t rely on energy. We have to now move out of the production of banana chips to the production of microchips.

“The world has evolved in such a way that young people will have more time to create more value. And it is either we get it done in a positive way or they will find other ways to use that time. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new world,” he continued, urging Jamaicans to find new ways to adapt and make use of the changes.

According to Manpower CEO Don Gittens, the conference was essential in looking at where Jamaica is currently from a business and social perspective after COVID-19, and to strategise a way forward.

“Social change is necessary and the pandemic underscored that,” he said. “It is essential to keep the conversation going and the conference provided that opportunity.”

Long-standing issues

Gittens said the pandemic forced citizens to grapple with long-standing issues of mental health, employer-employee relations, developing technologies, and an ever-changing world.

“It has also affected the country’s outlook on social, political, and economic issues. It has even changed the way we relate to each other, and how we conduct meetings,” he said, pointing to many opportunities that came about due to the strict precautionary measures.

In the meantime, Dr Tanique Bailey-Small, medical officer of health in St James, noted that while public healthcare, the arm responsible for monitoring and tracking likely outbreaks in the island, is constantly working in silence, COVID-19 proved that the onus extends to businesses and individuals to inform themselves and take precautionary measures to minimise impact.

This is particularly important in the face of the limited resources available in the health sector, she said.

In her address, dubbed ‘The Next Pandemic: Anticipation and Preparation’, Bailey-Small outlined several needed improvements to Jamaica’s healthcare.

“We have to continue as we think about a pandemic to build our human resource access and capacity, and also to look at the many lessons, such as training of our healthcare workers, infection control, and so forth. We also need public health education, the importance of the information being out there, and that people are understanding. It’s about getting into the school and the communities, not just while we are in a pandemic,” she said, highlighting the infrastructural shortages such as beds, bed space, and oxygen, that came with COVID-19.

Natasha Garraway, director of macroeconomics and trade in the Economic Planning and Research division of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, brought some good news to the conference. Some J$25 billion was allocated to alleviate the stress of the pandemic.

“From a macroeconomic perspective, we have recovered from COVID-19, and this has afforded the government of Jamaica to refocus efforts towards measures aimed at addressing the constraints and mitigating the risks to growth,” she said, naming climate-related hazards and improving the skill sets of the labour force, and inadequate housing.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com