Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter
Graduates of the University of the West Indies will be able to work throughout the Caribbean without hassle. - Nathaniel Stewart Photo
The target date for the implementation of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM) is January 1, 2006. Under the CSM, specified occupational and professional groups will be allowed to work in other CARICOM territories without work permits. Initially, university graduates, artistes, sportspersons and media workers will be allowed free movement across the single-market area.
IN ADDITION to thousands of graduates from the University of the West Indies, artisans, sportspersons and media workers, some 100,000 Jamaicans are ready, with certificates in hand, to take up jobs in CARICOM countries.
"Next year, we will have enrolled in training, 100,000 persons. Our promise to the country is to have half of our Jamaican workforce, which numbers a little over a million persons, certified to international standards by the end of 2008," said Robert Gregory, executive director of the HEART Trust/NTA.
"We believe that achieving this objective will bring us to the tipping point. I think it will be critical ... to change the profile forever of the Jamaica workforce from a low-skilled, cheap labour workforce to a high-skilled, internationally-competitive workforce," he added.
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The executive director said the change in the labour force would attract a different kind of investment that brings jobs which require education and training and jobs that pay decent money.
"The promise of the CSM to employers is that they will have access to a pool of about seven million workers and the promise to workers is that they will have job opportunities in territories in the region," Mr. Gregory said.
Meanwhile, Horace Dalley, Minister of Labour and Social Security, said there are enough jobs to accommodate university graduates across the region.
He noted that there is a shortage of workers especially in the areas of accounting and quantity surveying in the region.
