Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter
THE MINISTRY of Labour is expecting to recruit additional agricultural workers this year under the United States Farm Work programme, for the first time in five years.
Rebounding from the negative effects of market changes and the 9/11 attacks, Barrington Bailey, director of Manpower Services at the Ministry of Labour, told The Gleaner in an interview yesterday that employment trends on the programme indicate that the programme will definitely be requiring more workers this year.
"For the first time in five years we are in the process of seeking additional agricultural workers," said Mr. Bailey.
"We don't know as yet how many we will need but last year we included 300 more workers and as a result of that we are expecting to have additional workers on the programme this year," said Mr. Bailey.
He pointed out that in the last few years there have been changes in the U.S. agricultural production which resulted in a decline in the number of workers.
"...The production of certain agricultural products such as tobacco went down. Apples are also now being grown cheaper by other countries such as China and as a result a lot of jobs are going to Asia," said Mr. Bailey.
The number of Jamaican workers employed in North America fell by 563 or 4.1 per cent from 13,822 in 2001 to 13,259 in 2002.
The majority of workers were em-ployed under the Canadian Farms/Fact-ories Programme which had 5,272 or 39.8 per cent of the total.
Next was the Hotel Workers Programme with 4,484 or 33.8 per cent, followed by the United States Farm Work Programme with 3,503 or 26.4 per cent.
Last year it was reported that more Jamaicans were gaining employment on Canadian farms and factories under the Government's Overseas Employment Programme.
According to statistics obtained from the Ministry of Labour, the number of Jamaicans who gained employment under the Canadian Farm/Factories Work programme increased to 2,740 persons for the first six months of last year, up from the 2,381 persons who went on the programme for the comparable period in 2003.
