DUFOUR and DEARRoy Sanford
, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE CLOSURE of all but one garment factory in Montego Bay, St. James, and the lack of proper educational facilities in schools, are leading to a rise in unemployment in the second city, two of its influential leaders have said.
They argue that in order to reverse the trend, urgent measures, such as the re-education of those who have been laid off and more remedial classes for students who are still in school, will have to be implemented.
The issue of a jump in the rate of unemployment was raised by Roman Catholic Bishop of Montego Bay, Most. Rev. Charles Dufour, during a Gleaner's Editors' Forum last week at the newspaper's Western Bureau, Montego Bay.
"I see a tremendous number of people every week and every month and many I see are unemployed and unemployable," said Bishop Dufour, whose office oversees five parishes in western Jamaica.
Although there are no updated statistics on the level of unemployment in Montego Bay, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica reported a 15.4 per cent rate of unemployment across the nation in October 2002. It also reported that St. James has a labour force of 86,300.
FALL OUT
Winston Dear, president of the Montego Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in expressing his concern about the matter, blamed the recent closure of virtually all garment factories in the Montego Bay Free Zone for the problem. "I know there has been a tremendous fall out from the garment industry in particular where we have lost 10,000 jobs," he told The Gleaner in an interview on Monday.
He said that although the Information Technology (IT) sector has been able to absorb at least 6,000 of the jobs lost, the problem still remains because those who have been laid off from the garment sector have a technical education that cannot be used anywhere else.
Bishop Dufour said one of the contributing factors to the problem was the lack of proper educational facilities for students. "Our classrooms are overcrowded and kids are not motivated to learn," he noted.
In exploring possible solutions to the problem, Mr. Dear said there was great potential in the tourism industry, which is expected to hit record highs in the upcoming winter season. He however said that training was crucial if such opportunities are to be exploited.
"We have tremendous natural skills in terms of the craft business but we don't have the formal training to really hone this talent into professional people," he added.
Bishop Dufour is proposing smaller classes at schools and remedial classes for students who are not doing well in order to prepare them for the work force.
