Labour Market Survey conducted in keeping with TVET mandate

Aug 20, 2014 News

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– aims to address “universal dilemma”

In keeping with the National Policy on Technical, Vocational and Education Training (TVET), there is a need for

information to be collected on competencies and emerging trends in the labour market.  And achieving this mandate could in fact be done through various studies and other measures that are certainly not confined to traditional occupational classifications.
Moreover, Labour Market Intelligence surveys are among the mechanisms that can be undertaken to meet the TVET mandate.
The importance of this process was particularly amplified yesterday even as the findings of a report on a 2014 Labour Market Intelligence Survey were presented during a seminar at the National Centre for Education Resource Development, Kingston, Georgetown.
The seminar, which targeted strategic persons within industries, was held by the Ministry of Labour in collaboration with the TVET Council.
Key among the features of the seminar was the presentation of the findings of a Labour Market Survey conducted by the Statistical Unit of the Labour Ministry. The survey, which was conducted in the 10 administrative regions of the country, benefited from financial and technical support from the Inter-American Development Bank.
Speaking at the forum yesterday was Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour, Reverend Patrick Findlay, who informed that the objective of the survey was to determine if there are any gaps which may exist for skills in five particular sectors of the economy. The targeted sectors were construction, engineering, forestry, manufacturing, hotel hospitality and commercial trade.
Findlay in his deliberations pointed out that the issue of absence of imperial data on the Guyana Labour Market is one that has been voiced regularly, even as he stressed that “institutions, such as the Council for TVET, require up-to-date data which will inform plans from relevant skills training programmes.”
This is light of the fact, he observed, that there have been youths leaving educational institutions in need of jobs that are not readily available, a situation that constitutes a “universal dilemma.”
But although the survey is a step in the right direction, Findlay informed that the situation is even farther reaching as “employers are complaining that persons graduating from Vocational skills training institutions are not suitably trained to perform on the job which indicates a mismatch between what persons are trained to do and what the labour market requires.”
This development, Findlay said, has amplified the need for the country to have adequately skilled workers.
“I am of the opinion that there are other areas where collaborations can take place as it pertains to skills training for improved production and productivity,” the Permanent Secretary said.
He therefore noted that coupled with skills training, entrepreneurship should be encouraged so that after training, persons are prepared to establish their own businesses.

“At this juncture of our history here in Guyana, we need to develop a highly skilled workforce…”
“My own experience in the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, as former head of the Men’s Affairs Bureau, having had the opportunity to traverse this dear land of ours with youths, especially in secondary schools in fourth and fifth forms… I am convinced that we need to consider improving the attitude of young men and women towards work…training may not be enough,” said Findlay.
And according to Assistant Chief Education Officer (Technical), Patrick Chinedu, who also attended the forum yesterday, the Education Ministry will be seeking to enhance workforce training at the level of the secondary schools. This will therefore see the Ministry proactively offering career guidance to secondary school students, he added, even as he noted that the findings of Labour Market Intelligence “will very much help us in guiding those students.”
In presenting the findings yesterday, Mr Ivelaw Henry, Chief Statistical Officer of the Ministry of the Labour Ministry said that the Ministry has in fact been doing several surveys over the years.
Among the areas that have gained focus are: occupational wages, hours of work and skill level, Henry disclosed.
But although strategic efforts have been made to better understand what obtains in the labour force, the Chief Statistical Officer noted that “we have been at the back in terms of our Labour Market Intelligence in Guyana; the reason being that we should be collecting regular labour force surveys but we have not been doing so…”
In fact, Henry said that based on available information, Guyana is the only country within the Caribbean Region that has not been doing regular labour market surveys which could provide additional information in terms of indicators, the composition of the employment in the various sectors, age range, and other requisite data.  This, he explained, is limited by Guyana’s extensive geography.
But based on recommendations, the Ministry is prepared to embrace regular surveys, most of which are likely to be focused on the coastland, a process that will be conducted in conjunction with the National Bureau of Statistics.
Another area that intelligence can be accessed regularly, Henry informed, is at the level of the National Insurance Scheme, which can provide information on contributors and the list of registered employers in the Scheme.
“We ourselves, in the Ministry of Labour, can provide some information on labour market intelligence in the sense that if we have our labour exchange really working in the kind of way that it should, you would know the amount of people who are registering for employment and the employers who are soliciting information from the labour exchange on vacancies they would have,” Henry said ahead of detailing the specifics of the findings.

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