Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM

Guyana's largest selling daily and New York's most popular weekly

Latest News

Our labour conundrum

Aug 26, 2012 Editorial

The region and CXC are still wrestling with the results of the last CSEC exam results. Ultimately, these concerns centre on our (in) ability to produce qualified professionals in the core vocations that determine the success or failure of countries in our globalised world. In most of the more developed countries, their worry is that they are not producing enough graduates in the STEM subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
The gap between our handwringing over graduates at the high school level and that of other countries over college graduates in those specific fields, suggests the road has not yet been taken by the Caribbean in general and Guyana in particular. We do not even offer an engineering degree at UG – and more than half of our applicants enter the faculties of humanities and social sciences. At the high school level, the less than 25% of our students that matriculated with five subjects including Mathematics and English, were dominated by the new ‘popular’ ‘business’ subjects.
If we are ever to become an ‘emerging economy’ we will have to simultaneously work in the high schools to improve their profiles in the Science and IT areas and retool UG to accommodate the new graduates into the STEM areas. However, we have to be aware that unless we have immediate employment for these new professionals, we will simply be exporting them to develop other economies. We all know (or should know) that even as we bemoan the poor facilities at UG, almost 90% of its graduates end up emigrating. This is our labour conundrum: how will we ever develop if we cannot retain our trained manpower?
Human capital has replaced financial capital as the engine of economic prosperity, according to Hans-Paul Bürkner, CEO of industry leader, Boston Consulting Group. The roots of the global talent hunt include the widely uneven quality of educational systems, erratic employability of the workers in the Southern Hemisphere and demographic changes in the Northern Hemisphere, where retirement of the baby boomers will result with an unprecedented talent deficit. In the United States, Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom, expected immigration and birth rates will not offset the workforce losses caused by aging populations.
Up to this point, most of our graduates have ended up in the US and Canada, but recent developments in the global economy indicate that while these two economies will still be magnets for our graduates, other magnets – perhaps more powerful ones, are in the making. Only last week there were reports in the local media that the government of next door Brazil, now the sixth largest economy will be taking pro-active steps to attract newly qualified professionals.
Brazil’s government is exploring ways to ease immigration rules in order to attract up to ten times more foreign professionals and help spur economic growth, a senior official told Reuters.
A lack of skilled workers is one of many bottlenecks that have lately brought the Brazilian economy to a near standstill. From construction sites to oil rigs and technology operations, companies are struggling to find qualified workers to ramp up their operations in Brazil. Internet giant Google, for instance, currently has thirty-nine open positions in Brazil. It would be rather ironic that while it is predicted our ongoing census will show a large number of Brazilians within our borders, these generally unskilled workers may be offset by professional Guyanese migrating to Brazil in the near future.
Last year, the World Economic Forum issued a report, Global Talent Risk, which concluded that global demand will be biggest for highly educated professionals, technicians and managers. Professionals will be in particularly high demand in trade, transport and communications industries in developing nations. In response, governments in both origin and destination economies are devising policies, independently, bilaterally and multilaterally, that respond to this shifting global demand for labour.
If we are not to become simply a supplier of professionals to developed and developing economies, and only tout the ‘benefits’ of remittances as our development stagnates, we also must devise a policy response.

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | December, 2nd, 2024

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Renuka, Mandhana consign West Indies to record loss

Renuka, Mandhana consign West Indies to record loss

Dec 23, 2024

(Cricinfo) – After a T20I series that went to the decider, the first of three ODIs between India and West Indies was a thoroughly one-sided fare. The hosts dominated from start to finish...
Read More
GBA confirms additional bouts

GBA confirms additional bouts

Dec 23, 2024

Opinion: Barbados Cricket Faces Crossroads

Opinion: Barbados Cricket Faces Crossroads

Dec 23, 2024

KMTC Boxing Day Horse race meet turning out to be signature year-end event

KMTC Boxing Day Horse race meet turning out to be...

Dec 23, 2024

Candy Boss Invitational 8-A-Side Football Tournament kicks off Boxing Night

Candy Boss Invitational 8-A-Side Football...

Dec 23, 2024

Chase Academy squares off with St Benedict’s College ahead of today’s final

Chase Academy squares off with St Benedict’s...

Dec 22, 2024

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Freedom of speech is our core value at Kaieteur News. If the letter/e-mail you sent was not published, and you believe that its contents were not libellous, let us know, please contact us by phone or email.

Feel free to send us your comments and/or criticisms.
Contact: 624-6456; 225-8452; 225-8458; 225-8463; 225-8465; 225-8473 or 225-8491.
Or by Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]