– amid labour shortage

-by Celestine Chacon

As Guyana’s economy continues to expand, a shortage of labour is being felt across several sectors, including the sugar industry which is facing challenges in attracting and retaining workers.

President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union, Seepaul Narine, says Guyanese workers need to become more flexible and adapt to the changing demands of the labour market.

Narine says while some Guyanese complain that foreign workers are taking jobs here in Guyana, there are manyinstances where local workers are simply not showing up consistently for work.

”All the sectors you go, people are telling you we don’t have people to work, and you’re seeing Spanish people, for instance, working mostly in construction and other jobs, and there is a complaint that Guyanese workers are not showing up for work, especially in construction when they get paid on Saturday. You don’t see them back until Tuesday, and that’s that’s a bad work ethic. It has to change,” he said.

The GAWU President also argued that workers must become more willing to work flexible hours as industries increasingly operate beyond the accustomed eight-hour operations.

“When they go and they work on the oil rig, they work in 12 hours a day, and they rotating the rotating ship from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. So they are adjustable there, and the same Guyanese when they go to New York, you see them waking up and go to work at 12 o’clock in the night,”

The union leader noted that greater access to education and better-paying job opportunities is encouraging more young Guyanese to pursue careers outside the sugar industry.

He believes that if the industry is to remain sustainable there needs to be comprehensive mechanization.

”This is where the point comes in about mechanization, right? You know, we have to prepare the industry to be mechanically friendly, and we have to retrain workers to operate those machines and so on, so that in the long term, your industry could be sustainable,” he said.

Narine says Guyana’s sugar sector must now move toward a model where technology improves productivity while creating more attractive jobs and higher pay for a modern workforce.