-Finance Minister says

SENIOR Minister within the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, has said that the government is on an aggressive drive to address and reduce skills mismatches in Guyana’s labour market.

The minister made these remarks during a live broadcast of the Dr Randy Persaud Show which was aired on the National Communications Network (NCN) on Sunday.

During the airing, he stated that while Guyana is on the path to rapid growth, it must be noted that new industries are emerging, new companies are being established along with new types of jobs and even new sectors.

Against this backdrop, he said that authorities have already observed that in some categories of work, there is a shortage of suitably skilled labour.

He said: “If you look at what’s happening, for example heavy equipment operators, there’s so much demand in mining and in industry and in warehousing and in construction for heavy equipment operators. There’s a vast shortage.”

This, he said is being seen in many industries including the rapidly expanding construction sector.

However, Dr Singh noted that this is the reality in which we are operating and is expected to continue for the foreseeable future given the projected continued strong growth in the economy.

“And so, we as a government recognise the importance of endeavouring to have an adequate supply of suitably skilled labour to achieve a two-fold purpose; one to ensure that on the demand side, industry and commerce have access to labour with suitable skills, so that they can continue their productive activity,” he said.

On the other hand, Dr Singh added that as many Guyanese people as possible must be able to take up the jobs that are now becoming available.

He indicated that in some sectoral areas and in some geographical areas, there is more demand for labour than there is supply.
To this end, he noted that this is one of the things that the government takes seriously which is addressed, is the mismatches in the labour market.

The finance minister added that when they think of these mismatches, they think of two things: sectoral- or skills-related mismatches because there might be demand and the growing demand for a particular set of skills.

He said there might be people who are looking for work, but they do not possess the particular skills that are in demand, but there is a need for labour.

“So, we have a heavy agenda, an aggressive agenda to reduce skills mismatches in the labour market by investing heavily in technical and vocational training, to train as many people as possible in the relevant areas that will be demanded today and tomorrow,” the finance minister added.