People from western Jamaica converged on the St Paul's United Church in Montego Bay to apply for farm work abroad last year. The downturn in the world economy is painting a gloomy outlook for job seekers in Jamaica. - File

FROM THE tough inner-city communities in the Corporate Area to that quiet farming district in Westmoreland, the cry for jobs has been echoing across the island.

To underscore the problem, last week, 600 persons turned up to apply for 10 vacancies at The Captain's Bakery and Grill in St Andrew.

"You have a job can give me?" one frustrated woman asked The Sunday Gleaner team, while others offered to do any sort of job that was available.

'jobs, jobs and more jobs'

But this should come as no surprise to the Bruce Golding administration, which booted the People's National Party out of power in 2007 with a promise to create "jobs, jobs and more jobs".

Now, with thousands more Jamaicans losing their jobs in the past 12 months and indications that the worsening global economic crisis could cause many others to be sent home, the Ministry of Labour is pulling out all the stops to find new job opportunities.

Already, Labour Minister Pearnel Charles has announced that his ministry will be switching its focus from industrial disputes to human-resource development and looking Redundancies reported to the labour ministry

Manufacturing 101

Financial, insurance and real estate 62

Community, social and

personal services 176 Restaurant services 20 Retail services 13 Hotel services 136 Communications 60 Transport and storage 48 Agriculture 8,515* Electricity, gas and water 3 Mining 196 Education 1 Total 9,331

* Includes sugar workers and some could be offered re-employment when the divestment is complete.

to the United States, Canada and South America for employment opportunities for displaced Jamaican workers.

According to Charles, the Government is to spend approximately $90 million to train and place Jamaicans in jobs locally and in the wider western hemisphere.

This is in addition to an inner-city training programme targeting gang members and potential gang members already launched by the labour ministry.

"The demand is for skilled labour and so workers will be retrained, certified and placed in jobs where their skills are in demand," Charles told The Sunday Gleaner.

overseas employment in '08

Last year, the labour ministry reported that 14,000 Jamaicans were placed in the overseas employment programmes in Canada and the United States during the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

Charles has already indicated that he wants to double that number while taking advantage of a proposal by United States President-elect Barack Obama to create millions of jobs over the next three years.

"Jamaica has no right to have thousands and thousands of young people unemployed with CXC subjects and we can't find anybody to go overseas to work. They don't have to work in Jamaica; it's a globalised world now," Charles asserted recently.

The labour ministry's new drive has received the support of Lambert Brown, president of the University and Allied Workers' Union, but he is urging workers not to sit back and wait on the State programmes.

"The Government has said that it is interested in retraining for a different market. That, I think, is a positive. (But) workers have to take some responsibility. I have constantly preached for workers to have a Plan B for employment. The cheese will move and they need to be proactive. Start your own business, go back to school and retrain," Brown said.

redundancies announced

Since late last year, redundancies have been announced in a number of sectors, including agriculture, bauxite, tourism and manufacturing.

A number of business leaders have warned that other entities could be forced to cut jobs as part of efforts to survive the global economic meltdown.

Last July, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica Labour Force Survey recorded an unemployment rate of 10.3 per cent. This was a shade above 9.7 per cent reported for the corresponding period in 2007.