{"id":31558,"date":"2026-08-24T19:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T23:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=31558"},"modified":"2026-08-24T19:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T23:34:15","slug":"gawu-calls-for-mechanisation-shift-in-work-attitudes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/gawu-calls-for-mechanisation-shift-in-work-attitudes\/","title":{"rendered":"GAWU calls for\u00a0mechanisation,\u00a0shift in work attitudes\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8211;\u00a0<strong>amid labour shortage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">-by Celestine Chacon<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Guyana\u2019s economy continues to expand, a shortage of labour is being felt across several sectors,&nbsp;including the&nbsp;sugar industry&nbsp;which is&nbsp;facing challenges in attracting and retaining workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers\u2019 Union, Seepaul Narine, says Guyanese workers need to become more flexible and adapt to the changing demands of the labour market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Narine says\u00a0while some Guyanese complain that foreign workers are taking jobs\u00a0here in Guyana, there are\u00a0manyinstances where local workers are simply not showing up consistently for work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201d<strong>All the sectors you go, people are telling you we don&#8217;t have people to work, and you&#8217;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&#8217;t see them back until Tuesday, and that&#8217;s\u00a0that&#8217;s\u00a0a bad work ethic. It has to change<\/strong>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The GAWU President also argued that workers must become more willing to work flexible hours as industries increasingly operate beyond the accustomed\u00a0eight-hour\u00a0operations.<br><br>\u201cWhen 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&#8217;clock in the night,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The union leader noted that&nbsp;greater access to education and better-paying job opportunities is encouraging more young Guyanese to pursue careers outside the sugar industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He&nbsp;believes that if the industry is to remain sustainable there needs to be&nbsp;comprehensive&nbsp;mechanization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201d<strong>This\u00a0is 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<\/strong>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Narine\u00a0says\u00a0Guyana\u2019s sugar sector must\u00a0now\u00a0move toward a model where technology improves productivity while creating more attractive jobs\u00a0and higher pay\u00a0for a modern workforce.<br><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8211;\u00a0amid labour shortage -by Celestine Chacon As Guyana\u2019s economy continues to expand, a shortage of labour is being felt across several sectors,&nbsp;including the&nbsp;sugar industry&nbsp;which is&nbsp;facing challenges in attracting and retaining&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[468,365,350],"tags":[488,1092,448,412],"class_list":["post-31558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-human-development","category-news","tag-488","tag-gawu","tag-ncn","tag-ncn-guyana"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31559,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31558\/revisions\/31559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}