As Guyana continues to build its bona fides as one of the world’s leading oil producers, the government is seeking to increase the numbers of skilled workers employed in the sector. While for reasons that have to do with its newness to a sector which, at its apex, demands significant numbers of employees possessed of highly specialized skills, Guyanese workers are employed, predominantly, closer to the bottom of the ‘food chain’. The country’s Natural Resources Minister, Vickram Bharrat, was quoted in the media recently as saying that one of the government’s ambitions is to turn that situation around.
In a sector that demands a high proportion of specialist skills to execute critical assignments associated with oil recovery, among others, Guyana has benefitted from little ‘lead’ time between the country’s first publicly confirmed oil find ‘strike’ in 2015 and the commencement of the various operational pursuits associated with oil recovery. Accordingly, like other developing countries, Guyana has had to be content with the recruitment of skills from abroad to support the ‘hi-tech,’ skills-based oil recovery exercise. More than five years after the disclosure of the country’s first confirmed oil find, the country continues to rely overwhelmingly on skills imported from abroad in order to meet some of the specialized manpower needs associated with aspects of the ‘recovery’ end of the process.