Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 03, 2010 News
– Labour Ministry charged 116 employers
The Ministry of Labour says that an estimated 450 vacancies advertised there could not be filled last year because of skills shortages.
These include drivers/salespersons, welders, fabricators, electricians, and mechanics.
Minister of Labour, Manzoor Nadir, last week, at his end-of-year press briefing, also disclosed that more than 3,500 applicants got jobs and were trained by his Ministry.
“I am urging job seekers and our youths to make use of training opportunities that abound through the many programmes offered by the government,” Nadir said, noting that 2009 was a year where “labour was in full flight” with all his departments performing exceedingly well. This, he felt, was due to the re-organisation underway at several sectors of the ministry in recent years.
Some 2000 persons, of the 2,673, were placed in jobs while another 1,500 graduated from the Board of Industrial Training (BIT), an institution which falls under the Ministry.
The 2,000 persons mark has the highest number being placed in jobs by the Ministry for the last 10 years.
“What these numbers indicate is that despite the 2009 economic crisis and the doomsayers’ predictions and criticisms, the economy has been performing and the partnership between the public and private sectors has worked well for the benefit of our people.
“This partnership cannot be over-emphasised because it was the private sector that has been posting the overwhelming majority of available jobs and the private sector has supported the placement of trainees.”
An analysis of data by the Ministry indicated that applicants for jobs have increased 98 per cent from 1,352 in 2006 to 2,673 in 2009 while vacancies grew 145 per cent over the period from 1,001 to 2,456. Jobseekers that were placed increased 102 per cent to 2006 from 994.
“This performance has been achieved because the agency promoted its services to the private sector and the job seekers and that was reinforced by the positive word of mouth endorsements that the work of the agency (Central Recruitment and Manpower Agency) received from its clients.”
The BIT, under the National Training Project For Youth Empowerment (NTPYE), saw the graduation of 1,140 persons with another 850 set to end their courses in March.
In 2009, the Single Parents Training Programme rolled out 275 graduates with 97 more graduating in February.
Some 72 Apprentices also benefited from BIT last year, the Minister revealed.
Since 2007, Nadir said, Government has been spending $50M annually on the NTPYE programme which is geared for young people who have not completed their secondary education.
With regards to the completion rates, the Minister said that it has improved from an average of 75 per cent to 85 per cent. Dropout rates were the highest in Region Four with 160 out of 250 persons who did not complete training. In contrast, Region 10 saw a completion rate of 91 per cent.
Region Ten also exceeded it targets for the Heavy Duty Equipment Training Programme which was introduced in 2009. Some 100 persons; 50 from Linden and another 50 from the Industrial Training Centre in Georgetown were targeted for graduation.
According to Nadir, the biggest problem for the training programmes was getting persons in Region Four to participate– it took co-ordinators seven months to get a batch of 20.
Meanwhile, the Ministry’s Labour, Occupational, Safety and Health (LOSH) Department has seen a 30 per cent increase over 2008 performance. Inspections carried out on workplaces increased from 3,029 in 2008 to 4,029 last year with monies collected from errant employers moving from $23M in 2008 to $37M in 2009.
Some 83 charges were laid against employers in 2008 but this moved to 116 last year.
With regards to the Statistical Unit arm of the Ministry, work on the Occupational Wages and Hours of Work Survey was redesigned with 300 responses instead of the annual average of 100.
A major project to prepare a draft employment report for 2009 covering labour trends between 2004 and 2008 has also been produced last year and this should be released early next year, the Minister said.
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