The fact that some foreigners are getting jobs in Guyana is because locals’ labour cost may be overpriced and the foreign nationals are willing to work for less than Guyanese would, Minister of Finance Winston Jordan has suggested.
Speaking at a People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) press conference on July 26th, Jordan zeroed in on assertions that there is a lack of jobs for Guyanese in the present economy. He said the fact that a foreigner could be able to get a job shows that there are jobs available.
“…When Guyana had a number of people exiting in the 70s, 80s and 90s and so forth, people, when they went to those countries, people complained about how Guyanese were taking away their jobs. You hear Mexicans taking away the Americans jobs and so forth. A lot of this, you know, is not true because everybody would want to go with their natives first. The fact that you could get a job in a country above a native, what does it suggest? Many things, right? It suggests that the labour cost in that country is overpriced because if I am prepared to cut grass for $1,000 but the native wants $1,500, who are you going to employ?” Jordan reasoned. He said the assertions being made about there being no jobs is untrue since he has seen Venezuelans, Cubans, Brazilians, Nigerians and Haitians getting jobs in Guyana – “a country that supposedly don’t have jobs.”
“I am not speaking lies. You have Haitian carpenters, Brazilian carpenters, plumbers, and all of these kinds of stories so there must be jobs. The question is whether the jobs are paying what you want it to pay,” he added.
He also referenced the situation years ago when Guyanese would migrate to Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago to do jobs that the locals there were refusing to do. “If you get a chance to visit the rich oil states, you will find that there are a lot of natives that don’t do quite a few things, the state pays them. You have a lot of people from all over the place who go there and do work that they [natives] would look down on. I don’t want us to get there,” he said, while adding that he does not support cash transfers, but would support targeted cash transfers.
The finance minister highlighted that there will be far more jobs being created as time progresses, but they will require a certain level of skill, depending on the job.
As a result, Jordan stressed that persons should not wait for the local content legislation for the petroleum sector since they do not need that, but to train their minds and learn a skill. He added that they should take advantage of the numerous free courses that are being offered by various institutions. “Jobs are going to be created but we have to prepare ourselves for those jobs and we have to anticipate what jobs are going to be there. Don’t waste time about ‘oh the oil industry isn’t producing many jobs.’ It would not, our oil industry is not onshore, it is offshore for the time being so there aren’t many oil jobs, but there are many oil-related jobs and there will be even more jobs when we could use the money from the oil industry to diversify the country,” the minister added.
Jordan had been questioned about his vision on the jobs outlook in the coming years and the local content policy for the petroleum sector that is still to be finalised.
As it relates to the local content policy, he said that he has been told by Director of the Department of Energy, Dr Mark Bynoe, that the legislation is “all but finished” and would be available for public consumption “fairly shortly.”
However, he said, “What I would like to say on that part though, is while legislation is important, we should not make it the be all and end all. Many companies that are coming here aren’t waiting for local content and other legislation, they are moving ahead. If various pieces of legislation represented the level of development, Guyana would be a very [developed] country because we have virtually legislation for everything. The proof of the pudding is always in eating.”
He emphasised that the implementation of the legislation and developing implementation bodies and systems are paramount, and while the local content legislation is important and vital, they have to use existing legislation to ensure that people get “parts of the pie” while they wait on the actual legislation to create a fair and level playing field, especially as it relates to the operations of non-nationals and foreigners as they enter Guyana.
