Susan Smith, Staff Reporter
HILL
"Start a business, employ persons, grow your wealth and become an entrepreneur," said chief restructuring officer for Air Jamaica, Aubyn Hill, as he offered advice to the members of the insurance sector and the wider Jamaica.
Mr. Hill was addressing the management and staff of the Half-Way Tree Branch of Life of Jamaica (LoJ) at their 35th annual sales awards ceremony, held at the Hilton Kingston Hotel last Thursday.
He told the audience that Jamaica should aim to become the most prominent employer in the world. However, this, he said, can only be facilitated when more Jamaican entrepreneurs get involved in training.
"When people think of skilled workers, they should think of Jamaica, not just India," he said. "Training is a viable business opportunity, especially for an economy attracting such a great influx of foreign investments," he added.
He explained that Jamaicans should not be looking to the government and the larger companies to provide employment because they are no longer in a position to hire many more persons.
In fact, they will have to do the opposite in order to reduce their operational cost, he rationalised.
Mr. Hill highlighted a number of areas available for Jamaicans to launch into the high-risk activity of being entrepreneurs.
AREAS FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP
He named nursing, airline, construction, mining and tourism as some of the industries which make Jamaica a good investment destination for the business of training.
"The airline business ... every year pilots have to be retrained every six months, why don't they come to Jamaica?" he asked. "We need to also break out of the thinking that you have to be in a certain category to be accepted," he added.
The Half-Way Tree branch of LoJ achieved $124.3 million of new annualised premium income for year 2004 against the $824 million achieved by the entire company for that period.
