With Promises to Keep

Dear Editor,

More Jobs! 30,000 Jobs on offer!!
It is not clear which job market is being proposed. It is a reasonable guess; however, that it would be in the Public Sector, if not specific to the Public Service.

The reason for the concern has to do with the scale of the proposed exercise, the periodicity over which it will be undertaken, in order to make a discernible impact; but more critically, the nature of employment to be offered to the unemployed of varying eligibility standards. Would this be a specially coordinated and visible exercise, or not unlike previous projects, fade into obscurity?

But to return to the likeliest set of opportunities for fulfilling promises – the Public Service, it would be necessary to take a quick review of its current constipated job structure, i.e.
a) Administrative
b) Senior Technical
c) Other Technical & Craft Skilled
d) Clerical Office Support
e) Semi-skilled Operatives & unskilled; and
f) Contracted Employees (most conveniently)

Incidentally, at no stage will productivity be an issue. There is little recollection of a performance appraisal system that is in anyway related to an unstructured promotion process. So that the matter of performance rewards has long been replaced by imposed (annual) salary increases that takes little or no account even of attendance records.

In the meantime, it has become increasingly convenient to recruit employees on contract – with the lure of not only unearned annual increases, although not being bona fide public servants; but with the gratuity of 22.5% of basic salary every six months intended to compensate for not being in pensionable employment.

The concern here is that contract employees can be recruited into any of the abovementioned non-skilled categories of jobs – down to the level of ‘unskilled’. Therefore, there goes productivity – a discouraging prospect when counted up to 30,000.

Just look at the following numbers taken from the 2019 Estimates in respect of the 10 Regional Administrations – in relation to possible ‘non-skilled’ categories:
– Clerical and Office Support – 513
– Semi-skilled Operatives & unskilled – 2,474
– Contracted Employees – 578 3,565
When it comes to the following eleven Ministries:
– Presidency
– Finance
– Foreign Affairs
– Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs
– Agriculture
– Natural Resources
– Public Infrastructure
– Education
– Public Health
– Social Protection
– Public Security
Contracted employees in 2019 numbered 2,456 out of a grand total of 17,022, or 14.4% of those Ministries’ establishments.
The biggest employers were:
i) Education – 2,884
ii) Public Health – 3,262
iii) Public Security – 7,658 13,804

Apart from qualified doctors, nurses and other medical specialists, Public Health would offer minimal opportunity for non-skilled personnel. Hopefully also, the latter could not be expected to reinforce an already challenged education system.
Ironically, however, Public Security includes the prison system – a most inhospitable prospect for any level of employee.

On the face of it, Agriculture is one immediate prospect to be explored. It provides opportunities for devising a creative strategy for producing a wide range of goods that can replace imports (with expiry dates). The sector also offers opportunities for substantive collaboration with established, as well as new, entrepreneurs in the private sector, from which Caricom and other investors should not be excluded.

In the meanwhile, there is need to upgrade the technological productivity in relation to that category of employee described as ‘Clerical and Office Support’ – a grouping inclusive of probable unskilled, which in 2019 totalled 6,827 persons (or 37.79%) from the aforementioned ministries. But included amongst them are very likely individuals in search of more creative employment.

Accordingly, the boastful promise of thousands of jobs require a high level creative task force, with clearly defined terms of reference, aimed at achieving more than just employment, but the objective of fundamental human resources development in the foreseeable future.

E.B. John