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IOM emphasises need for migration policy to help Guyana solve labour shortage – Report
Kaieteur News – The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in its 2022 country report recommended that Guyana places emphasis on establishing a migration policy to help the country solve its shortage of skilled labourers, particularly given the rapidly developing oil sector.
The report is being highlighted even as the Government of Guyana mulls the creation of a National Labour Committee, working under the umbrella of the Ministry of Labour. The proposal specifically targets the country’s labour shortage in the oil and gas sector.
According to IOM Guyana, in 2021, a study was initiated on the country’s readiness and institutional capacity to facilitate migrant labour.
Based on the report, the findings of the study sought to shed new light on policy measures to be implemented in Guyana with regard to labour migration as well as to explore other aspects; notably: legislative and administrative structures in place to manage and develop labour migration in Guyana.
Issues such as safe labour migration practices; fair recruitment of workers; and appropriate integration of migrants into the local culture were explored.
The recommendations have been crafted through thorough and careful analysis of the Guyanese environment, its projected development and the situation prevailing in Guyana in relevant dimensions particularly the now developed oil and gas sector.
Through the study, it was hoped that relevant stakeholders, including policymakers, continue to take steps in the right direction to ensure that Guyana has in place a suitable framework to manage its potentially explosive growth.
The IOM had placed emphasis on the need for a migration policy to help Guyana solve the shortage of skilled labourers
Among other issues, the study placed significant emphasis on the recruitment of migrant labour, specifically about fair recruitment and the ways in which local institutions can practice such recruitment protocols.
As a result of the Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and the cross-referencing existing legislation and publications related to migrant labour, the research team was able to formulate succinct and practical policy recommendations to guide the management and development of labour migration for the years to come.
The study also noted that information harnessed on the local workforce will also be critical to ensuring that migrants do not encroach on employment opportunities for citizens.
It was therefore recommended that the government modernizes the institutional and legislative framework associated with migration as a matter of priority.
“Simultaneously, the government must ensure that the Guyanese workforce benefits from significant training for those without recognized skills, retraining for those whose skills may be mismatched with the demand in the economy, and upskilling for those who may have skills but are unable to operate in a capable manner within an intensified competitive environment,” the report pointed out while noting that Guyana also has a large Diaspora around the world, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.
The report determined that “a structured engagement with the Diaspora ensues where this skillset can be tapped in a manner which can contribute to its maximum potential.”
‘The next decade,” it said “is one in which Guyana’s population, its labour force, and the number of migrant workers will increase like no other period in the post-independence Guyana.”
“This trend is already foreshadowed by a reversal of the net arrival rate in Guyana which has reversed since 2015.
In 2016, Guyana, for the first time in recent history, had more persons arriving in the country than departing. This number, growing exponentially to 18,150 in 2018, is expected to continue to rise throughout the decade,” the document added.
It pointed out that even if Guyana were to harness all of its unemployed, underemployed and discouraged workers, the potential supply of labour would be only 63,500.
“In the medium-term, it is estimated that Guyana will need approximately 160,000 workers. The conclusion can be drawn that there will be the need for, at minimum, 100,000 workers in Guyana to realize its full growth potential. It is for this reason that ensuring there is a structured migration policy, informed by evidence-based analysis is key,” the report emphasized.
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