The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

ABOUT 1,600 job seekers have obtained employment through the government's Labour on the Blocks job fairs, Labour Minister Dion Foulkes said yesterday.

The unemployment rate has remained persistently high over the last decade, with a rate of 10.7 percent according to the last labour force survey. Labour on the Blocks uses community parks to register job seekers in the Department of Labour's database.

During his budget speech in the Senate, Mr Foulkes said the programme will be expanded and merged with the Over-the-Hill economic programme and the National Training Agency to address job vacancies in the maritime sector.

Mr Foulkes said the National Training Agency has trained 1,640 people over the last two years, achieving an overall job placement rate of 55 percent. The programme completed a contract to provide training for 260 at-risk youths in soft skills, numeracy and literacy and technical skills with concentrations in the hospitality and retail sectors, he added.

"The structure of the programme," he said, "was guided by the results of the Department of Statistics' Wages and Productivity Survey (2012) and was intended to provide demand-driven training to increase the employability and employment levels of 260 at-risk youth between the ages of 16 to 29 through training in soft skills, technical skills, numeracy and literacy skills, and on-the-job training/internships.

"To ensure that this objective was met, competency-based education and training (CBET) largely informs the NTA's training delivery system, serving as an effective means to bridge education and training to the actual requirements of the workplace.

"The NTA made a number of adjustments to ensure that the needs of at-risk youths were met. These adjustments include changes to the recruitment process, a revamped curriculum, re-training of the entire team, re-development of curricula, lesson plans and learning materials, the implementation of new assessments and evaluations, and the use of training monitors and life coaches to ensure that the at-risk youths remained fully engaged throughout the 12 weeks of training."

He said the majority --278 out of 293 --of trainees who were registered and present on day one of the training successfully completed the four weeks of soft skills training, obtaining certificates from the NTA's Mandatory Workforce Preparatory Programme, indicating their successful matriculation through the programme.

He said there was a similar success rate for the technical skills training: 91 percent (254 out of 278).

Mr Foulkes also said: "Trainees received internationally recognised certifications in demand areas of the hospitality and retail sectors, including: food and beverage, butler services, housekeeping, customer services, retail services, guest services, and food preparation. The true test of any youth training programme lies not only in improving the employability of trainees but also in its ability to aid them in getting employment. By that measure, the training has been a resounding success with a 46 percent (117 out of 254) employment rate for trainees who successfully completed the 12 weeks of training (as of February 2019). This compares favorably to the NTA's average employment rates for lower risk populations and indicates, more so than any other measure, the success of the training."