JNSC Programme will help Jamaica’s skills gap, says CEO

KINGSTON, JAMAICA — The new training programme being rolled out by the HEART/NSTA Trust and JNSC has the potential to help resolve Jamaica’s skills gap, said Joseph Boll, Caribbean Employment Services Inc. CEO.

Caribbean Employment Services Inc. is a market-leading digital talent acquisition service that aims to connect the top talent from the Caribbean with hiring managers, HR professionals, and decision-makers in companies both within the Caribbean as well as abroad. Further, it aims to provide the region’s jobseekers and those who are already employed with news and resources related to Caribbean labour.

Boll was commenting on the recent announcement by Prime Minister Andrew Holness that the JNSC Programme will aim to recruit some 2,000 Jamaican youth every year, providing them with meaningful skills training and a pathway to gainful employment.

“The skills gap issue not just in Jamaica but throughout the Caribbean has long been debated over,” Boll said. “Of course, there have been many attempts to remedy it as well. This latest programme is ambitious, and if it can manage to successfully recruit and effectively engage 2,000 young people every single year, that could have a very positive impact not just for the immediate workforce but also for the future.”

The programme will have an ambitious goal to fill, considering that fewer than 5,300 were recruited over the past seven years. Up until March of this year, just under 1,100 young Jamaicans have been engaged in the programme so far, leaving programme operators the rest of the year to attract another 1,000 youth to take part.

However, Boll added that the benefit is participants won’t be forced to enroll in the defence force or national service after completing the programme, noting, “Some young people might not envision themselves as soldiers in the long run, but this programme would be a good way to help them develop skills they can use for other careers, while also developing discipline and soft skills that will surely help them to succeed.”

As such, the CEO said, “We at Caribbean Employment Services Inc. are surely looking forward to these developments and the positive effects to come.”