LABOUR Minister Dr. Nanda Gopaul is urging unemployed persons seeking employment to make better use of the Labour Ministry’s Central Recruitment and Manpower Agency (CRMA) and the apprenticeship programmes of the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) as means of escaping the unemployment trap.Dr Gopaul said training in skills for which there are few jobs was a contributory factor to unemployment even among those persons with university degrees.
He said:”I was recently horrified to find a student with passes in four science subjects in addition to other subjects, who went to university and graduated with a degree in Public Management is currently unemployed.”
He said that graduates in the field of natural sciences, information and communications technology (ICT) and in mathematics and such other subjects have relatively little difficulty in finding jobs.
He said the University of Guyana needs to have persons counselling students on what courses they should take, based on their qualifications and the needs of the job market.
He said the services of the CRMA are being underutilised, notwithstanding the fact that there are people who are unemployed.
The CRMA, he disclosed, reported that as at November 29 it had been able to source 4000 vacancies, mainly in the commercial sector, but had been unable to find all the persons needed to fill those vacancies.
Their placement amounted to approximately 3000 for the year at various workplaces, even as more and more employers are clamouring for workers through that agency, Dr Gopaul said.
“There have been less applicants for the jobs which have been available on the market,” he said. “So, more jobs are available, and we are having less applications.”
He said the type of training which the Labour Ministry had done via the Board of Industrial Training
had enabled it to place quite a large portion of young people at work places.
He, however, bemoaned the fact that there are many people who have graduated from the University of Guyana with skills for which there are few jobs available; and he said the unfortunate thing was that those persons were not registering with the CRMA.
“We are streamlining the CRMA. We are regionalizing the registration, and we are calling on them (unemployed persons) to register with us,” Dr Gopaul said.
He also said that agencies like the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) offer scholarships that can be accessed by suitably qualified persons. Then there were the apprenticeships offered by the BIT.
For 2013, 1537 persons graduated from training programmes organised by the BIT in engineering, electrical services, building construction, health services, home economics and information technology.
He, moreover, noted that more and more companies were coming forward and offering apprenticeships to suitable applicants. “The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) is the latest one. Then there are others, like the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo); the Guyana National Industrial Company. Inc (GNIC); and the Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL), among others,” he said.
He singled out Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited for sponsoring an apprenticeship scheme for persons interested in working in the Banking Sector. This bank, he said, had done a great job in that it had not only trained apprentices to satisfy its own needs, but had produced graduates who had sought and obtained employment in other banks within the sector.
“These are options that persons can pursue. They can learn while working, rather than learn then work,” he said, during an end-of-year review of the work of the Labour Ministry last week .

(By Clifford Stanley)