As Jamaica’s ministry of tourism moves to tap into the local labour force to identify, recruit and deploy at least 10,000 of 90,000 workers required in the global cruise industry, care is being taken to ensure there is no negative impact on the local hospitality sector which is already hit by a shortage of skilled workers.
As Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett explained, the cruise industry’s demand stems from a shortage of workers that goes back to the novel coronavirus pandemic’s disruption of tourism activities worldwide, which resulted in a reduction in the number of persons employed in the sector.
He assured, however, that the ministry and stakeholder partners will be diligent in ensuring that the process of identifying and recruiting potential employees “does not disturb our [local] hospitality sector, which is so key.”
Bartlett said focus will be placed on areas “where we don’t have the strength of the hotels”, among other related offerings, and which would have suitable persons readily available to take up available job openings.
He was speaking during a ceremony at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston for the presentation of Disaster Risk Management Tools to tourism and allied industry stakeholders, on June 10.
The minister said the demand for employees within the tourism industry is consistent with those in various domestic and global sectors, and forms part of the stakeholder response in the overall post-COVID-19 recovery efforts.
Consequently, he said a level of portability must be created and facilitated among local workers that would enable their taking up job opportunities arising, noting that “it’s one that we have to encourage, but [which] we also have to manage.”
