The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The National Tripartite Council’s (NTC) chairman says improving the Bahamian workforce’s productivity “has to be the number one priority” as the latest effort to eliminate workforce skills gaps launched yesterday.

Robert Farquharson, pictured, speaking as the National Workforce Skills Gap Survey 2021 was released, told Tribune Business that improving labour skills and quality was vital to The Bahamas’ economic competitiveness and strength of the post-COVID revival.

“I think it has to be the number one priority of the ministry of labour and the government to improve the level of productivity in the Bahamian economy,” Mr Farquharson, who heads the body responsible for resolving all labour matters in The Bahamas, said.

“We need to make our economy more competitive, and one of the ways to do it is increase the level of skills so that employers can find everything at all levels in our economy. Because we’re coming out of the pandemic our economy needs to be very competitive just because we are competing on the world stage for the tourism dollar. Improving the level of productivity and efficiency will make the Bahamian economy more competitive on the world stage.”

The last Bahamian workforce “skills gap” survey was conducted in 2012 by a combination of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the government and the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC). It found significant deficiencies, with multiple sectors wanting to employ Bahamians but finding there were too few available with the necessary skills or wanting to do the work.

“We know there’s a need to increase productivity,” Mr Farquharson, a former union leader, reiterated. “We know there’s a demand from employers to have the workforce upskilled. This survey will identify the specific needs, and develop programmes to address those needs and improve the level of productivity and efficiency in the labour marketplace.

“The last comprehensive survey, done in 2012, identified significant skills gaps specifically in the medical and allied services industries, the construction sector and the maritime sector. We saw a significant amount of gaps being experienced in those sectors because we did not have trained Bahamians qualified to do the job, particularly in construction, such as tile laying, air conditioning and welding.

“We had to issue a significant amount of work permits to non-Bahamians because there is a need for those skills in those areas. We were unable to find the skills in the Bahamian labour force and had to issue work permits. We’re trying to address that problem by training Bahamians and giving them skills so that when vacancies occur again we have a foundation of trained, certified Bahamians with the necessary skills.”

Mr Farquharson, which is working with the Ministry of Labour, National Training Agency (NTA) and Department of Labour on a survey that also has the Chamber of Commerce’s support, said they want to ensure the replies received are not “Nassau centric” and the goal is to obtain feedback from the major Family Island economies such as Exuma and Eleuthera with help from their private sectors.

John Pinder, director of labour, voiced optimism that the skills gaps identified, and strategies developed to address them, would enable his agency to reduce by 50 percent the more than 10,000 labour certificates it issues annually to support work permit applications for highly skilled expatriates.

“Currently, the Department of Labour is issuing over 10,000 labour certificates annually for skilled labour,” he said. “This includes renewals of certificates for labourers who are already working in the country. I believe that this survey would address this area.

“In the end, if Bahamians are trained to do the various jobs that require certain specialised skills, we would be able to reduce the amount of labour certificates issued by about 50 percent.”

Gadville McDonald, the National Training Agency’s (NTA) executive director, added: “We are requesting the participation of all businesses and employers in every island of The Bahamas.

“This is an opportunity for you to assist in bridging the skills gaps in our country and partner up to improve the overall efficiency and productivity within your own organisation. We believe that the current climate created huge opportunities to train, up-skill and retrain the workforce of the Bahamas.”

And Mr Farquharson added: “This national survey is designed to engage employers and business owners in The Bahamas by inviting them to answer 16 questions that will assist in the gathering of critical data to enable the Ministry of Labour to identify the skills required by the business community to make their enterprises more productive and efficient; design education and training programmes to respond to the needs of employers and make the Bahamian labour force more competitive; provide the Department of Labour with additional data to improve the delivery of quality service to both job seekers and employers that utilise the Public Employment Services Unit of the department; and provide important data to our policy makers when making decisions on the Bahamian labour market and policies and programmes for our national development.”

The survey is being sent to all businesses and employers throughout The Bahamas and is also accessible at http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KYGDNYP, ntabahamas.org and on the Ministry of Labour, NTA, Department of Labour and NTC Facebook pages. The results will be tabulated and provided to all relevant parties.