Jobs on the horizon
A Cabinet minister is predicting that within three to five years the unemployment rate in this country will drop as low as 3.5 percent.
The Democratic Labour Party’s Christ Church East Central candidate and Minister of Education, Ronald Jones made the prediction while speaking Sunday night at the official opening of the DLP’s St. Joseph constituency office. Jones referred to such things as new hotels coming on stream, which he hinted will result in hundreds of people securing gainful employment. His comments came as he noted that during the last 10 years, though it was difficult, the DLP-run Government has planted the “right seeds” to get the country back on track.
“When you open Sam Lord’s Castle, when you open Sandals down in the north, when you open the one up there in Foul Bay, these people ....employ one and a half persons for every room and when our medical infrastructure grows out that is employment; I see people being employed there too,” he added.
The Education minister spoke to that as he also highlighted that employment opportunities will also come by way of the renewable energy sector. Noting that concerted efforts are being made to green the economy, he said persons will be trained at the Barbados Community College and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology to build and service the renewable energy systems.
“Greening this economy through green energy; wind, sun, the wave action, eventually, will reduce your dependence and the outflow of foreign exchange from fossil fuels’ purchase,” he stated.
Speaking specifically about education, Jones said the DLP government is building an educational firmament and an educational agenda that places medical education as the foundation.
“But we are also going to be going in very strongly in the University of the West Indies and the Barbados Community College with language, those people who have another language, to learn English as a second language... We should be able to offer our services to the world both within the terrestrial framework and the online framework, because a product that is good should not be kept under the shadows or a blanket, but should be shared with the world and money comes as a result of that,” he maintained.
To that end, Jones spoke of the growing number of medical schools that have been set up and are operational in this country. The education minister told the audience that as much as $300 million can be made in Barbados per year through the medical schools, once the number of students reaches around 10 000. He made the point while noting that had Barbados also had the teaching hospital capacity, the country could have attracted in the region of 15 000 students, increasing the income earning potential exponentially. (JRT)