Guyanese place a high premium on their labour -Immigrants are working for less

Guyanese place a high premium on their labour –Immigrants are working for less – Minister Jordan

Jul 27, 2019 News

Minister of Finance Winston Jordan yesterday at the People’s National Congress Reform weekly press conference, asserted that Guyanese place a higher premium on their labour, compared to the immigrants now in our midst who are working for much less.
“Guyana has a relatively small population .We speak about jobs and we hear a lot of young people who say that there are no jobs. I have seen Venezuelans, Cubans, Brazilians, Nigerians, and even Haitians in Guyana with jobs… a country which supposedly has no jobs! Guyana has carpenters of all different nationalities, so there must be jobs,” the Minister explained.
He took some time to shed some light on some issues of the past, back when in the 1970s to the 1990s, there were high numbers of Guyanese migrating to the United States of America.
“People complained how Guyanese took away their jobs. There is no basis for this, but it is true, because everyone would want to deal with their natives first. The fact that you can go in a country of a native and get a job, what does it suggest? Many things; for one, the labour cost in that country is very high, because if I am prepared to cut grass for $1,000 but the native wants to cut grass for $1,500 who are you going to employ? Most obviously, the $1,000… and I would go for the $1, 000,” the Finance Minister posited.
He further disclosed that these immigrants, many of whom fled their country because of poverty, crime, and political instability, find it feasible to work for a lower premium, and added that, “The real question is whether the job is paying what you want it to pay. For these people, yes, for others, maybe not”.
Aside from this, he expressed that, “There is a skill level, depending on the job, and people are not prepared. Jobs are going to be created, but we have to prepare ourselves for those jobs.”
In September of last year, this publication carried an article, which stated that more than half of Guyana’s workforce only has a primary education. According to the Bureau of Statistics’ Labour Force Survey (LFS) for 2017, it was reported that more than half of the nation’s workforce was either without any formal schooling, or only attained primary education. Furthermore, in that report it was discovered that about a quarter of the working age population has upper secondary education, but only 2.8 percent has a Bachelor’s degree or above.

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