By Leonardo Blair, Staff ReporterVACANCIES FOR lecturers, teachers and other related professions in the education sector registered the most postings almost 1,200 on the Government's Labour Market Information System (LMIS) website between May 2002 and December last year, according to a report from the Ministry
of Labour.
The high demand for educators both locally and overseas is partly linked to ongoing teacher recruitment in the months of May, June, July and September last year, the report said.
The report, which is the 10th of its kind in a series of ongoing reports on vacancies advertised within the Jamaican labour market, identified the top 15 areas in which workers were being sought for the period and the category marked 'lecturer/instructor/teacher/educator' topped the field with 952 posted vacancies. A related field, 'principal/head of school/dean' took fourth position for the period with 229 postings.
NO LARGE SURPLUS
Jasper Lawrence, deputy chief education officer in charge of operations in the Ministry of Education, explained to The Gleaner that the ministry placed advertisements through its six regional offices and since that time finding teachers to fill posts in public schools had not been a problem.
"Over the past two years we have advertised through our six regional offices and what we have asked is for available persons to apply and indicate the subject area, the geographic location and whether they are part time or full-time. From the responses we have no impression of any large surplus of teaching positions," said Mr. Lawrence.
He explained that having checked with principals from different schools there was no indication that currently there is any serious need with the availability of university and teachers' college graduates in the market for education.
OTHER JOB POSTINGS
Employees in marketing, sales, brand and promotions management had 316 postings putting their demand at third position while, accountants, executives and general managers took fourth position with 313 postings.
A total of 8,061 vacancies were advertised during the period and the bulk of those vacancies fell under the occupational group of 'professionals, senior officials and technicians' with 5,481 vacancies posted for the period. Service workers, shop and market sales workers accounted for 1,377 of the total while vacancies for skilled agricultural and fishery workers were the lowest with just 39 postings.
