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78 Percent Of The Jamaican Labour Force
Unemployable
News Item From The Jamaica Gleaner
OF THE 1.1 million labour force in Jamaica,
881,400 or 78 per cent has no training, said Opposition spokesman on Labour and the Public
Service Cliff Stone, quoting from the Labour Force Survey for 1998.
"We are deeply worried about the decline of labour in the marketplace today. The
sorrow comes from both factory closures and reduction and loss of jobs in other sectors of
the economy," Mr. Stone said.
He suggested that international trade agreements be examined at various levels to find out
the possible reasons for labour decline.
Mr. Stone argued that the concern should not simply be about global needs while national
needs were being stifled. "We need to find innovative ways of speaking to each other,
perhaps borrowing a great deal from the tool of social partnership which is an excellent
public policy scheme."
On the matter of the minimum wage, Mr. Stone said it should not be seen as simply an
intention to make the worker feel that there is someone who cares. "Minimum wage must
be organised on the basis or the extent to which resources are growing from strength to
strength with the growth of civil society."
He said the country should entertain a major national study on what was necessary and
desirable for paying workers in every sector. "It should cease to be the task of
Government to ensure that we can no more depend on the goodwill of employers to 'top-up'
what has been statutorily established.
Each time the minimum wage has been set, he said, its power had been diminished by the
crippling dragon of inflation. Government needs to approach the setting a minimum wage
sector by sector to reflect the potential of each sector to generate increments which can
be allocated to the worker, he said.
Mr. Stone also called for a charter of workers' rights, adding that the rights of workers
should not rank below the right to property.
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