Study to assess oil sector labour shortage to be completed this year

Study to assess oil sector labour shortage to be completed this year — Routledge

Jun 20, 2026 News

(Kaieteur News) – ExxonMobil Guyana’s Country Manager, Alistair Routledge, has announced that a major industrial baseline study commissioned by the company to assess labour shortages in Guyana’s oil and gas sector will be completed before the end of this year.

Routledge made the disclosure on Wednesday while addressing attendees at the Handover Ceremony for the Letter of Approval of Local Content Plans, held at Duke Lodge. He acknowledged that while the number of Guyanese employed in the sector has grown steadily, the industry continues to face significant challenges in sourcing local workers with the advanced skills and educational qualifications the sector demands.

Study to assess oil sector labour shortage to be completed this year — Routledge

ExxonMobil Guyana’s Country Manager, Alistair Routledge

“As we look forward, I truly believe that the education sector, whether it be vocational education or professional education, is going to be a critical part,” Routledge said. “In fact, ExxonMobil has commissioned an industrial baseline study that will be completed later this year.”

The study is designed to give the company — and by extension, the broader industry — a clearer picture of the current state of Guyana’s workforce. Specifically, it will assess the baseline capacity of the existing labour pool, evaluate what additional training educational institutions can realistically deliver to raise that capacity, and map out the projected demand for workers — not only within oil and gas, but across other sectors of the economy as well.

That last point, Routledge stressed, is critical to ensuring that the rapid growth of the energy sector does not come at the expense of the wider economy — a phenomenon widely referred to as the “Dutch disease.”

“That’s critical to understand if we’re to avoid what many have called the Dutch disease — that one industry doesn’t rob the capacity from the rest of the economy and end up becoming a detriment to the long-term sustainability of the economy. So, it is critical that we are bringing education and the workforce in its entirety into the conversation,” he said.

The labour shortage concern is not limited to the private sector. As this publication reported in February, Commissioner of Police Clifton Hicken sounded the alarm over a growing retention crisis within the Guyana Police Force (GPF), directly linking it to the allure of the booming oil and gas industry.

Speaking at the opening of the Police Officers’ Conference, Hicken acknowledged that competition from the lucrative energy sector has made it increasingly difficult to retain officers within the Force — even as it undergoes wide-ranging reforms and expands its ranks beyond the required quota of 5,557 personnel. He noted that despite meaningful progress — including women now comprising 44% of the GPF — retention remains a persistent and pressing challenge, particularly in hinterland and riverain communities where infrastructure gaps compound the problem.

Routledge’s announcement suggests that the private sector is now taking a more structured and data-driven approach to confronting these challenges — one that could, if acted upon, help shape education and workforce policy for the country as a whole.

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Alistair Routledge, Guyana’s oil and gas sector, labour shortage, oil sector

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