As Guyana’s development continues on the rise, foreign nationals looking to migrate into the country can bridge the immediate skills and labour gaps that prevail.
The Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) on Thursday hosted a webinar on employment opportunities and barriers faced by migrants looking to enter the Guyanese workforce.
In his remarks, Richard Rambarran, Senior Vice President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), shared that migrant workers can fill gaps in the local workforce, and locals can benefit from the opportunity afforded by means of skills transfer exercises.
“For a Private Sector enterprise, that reduces the search costs for a worker, (and) helps to have increased productivity and output over an immediate term, as opposed to having to train an individual and have them accelerate along the learning curve,” Rambarran said.
“Migrants that are well skilled are able to participate in the local economy and simultaneously train one or perhaps a cadre of individuals, who then themselves become highly productive, or who are able to operate with a degree of dexterity in a particular area,” Rambarran said.
This has the long-term effect of furthering the level of competitiveness at both the local and international scales, he noted.
With the Government’s aggressive infrastructural agenda underway, Rambarran explained, employment opportunities are guaranteed to exist in the construction and engineering subsectors.
However, the tourism subsector can also see much to gain from external expertise.
“Where we are projected to go in Guyana with our business tourism influx, and then pleasure tourism as the country begins to gain more international spotlight, I believe that tourism has become a very important sector for absorbing migrant workers, particularly those who have experience in the Caribbean as well as in the Latin American region,” Rambarran said.
He explained that migrant workers do, however, face several challenges within the Guyanese labour market. Those come in the form of language barriers; rising cost of living resulting in housing difficulties, and a prevalence of abuse of workers within the informal sector.
“We must be cognisant of the barriers that exist for ease of integration and work actively to address them. I think we can work actively to address them through a comprehensive migration policy, reform of our labour laws into a modern, updated and comprehensive piece of legislation that reflects where we are anticipated to go, and accede to some of the international conventions which we have not yet acceded to,” Rambarran said.
Labour legislation
Legal Officer within the Labour Ministry, Alyea Williams, noted that the legal framework for labour operations in the country does take into account protection of migrants through the Constitution of Guyana, labour legislation, and international conventions.
“We are currently aiming towards the development of a comprehensive Labour Migration Policy which would have us more involved in the regularisation process of migrant workers. We’re also in the process of conducting a comprehensive review on amendments of labour laws to better serve the interests of all workers in Guyana,” Williams said.
Recognising the need to strengthen capacity-building, the Labour Ministry is also actively working to expand its administration, particularly in regard to language translators, to improve their ability to conduct thorough investigations into the working conditions of migrants.
“Currently, we’re focusing on establishing more offices in all regions, thereby making it easier for the general population to access your
