Prime Minister David Thompson
Government has agreed to hire a consultant to seek new areas of employment for Barbadians overseas.
This disclosure was made by Prime Minister David Thompson earlier this week, as he spoke with the media, after the Second Meeting between the Council for Investment, Exports, Foreign Exchange and the Diaspora (CIEX) Cabinet Subcommittee and Barbados’ overseas missions. The meeting was held at the conference room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Culloden Road, St. Michael.
Mr. Thompson told journalists that Barbadians were not "as enamoured of the farm labour scheme as they used to be", but preferred jobs at resorts such as the four diamond Amelia Island Hotel, where he had seen them working a few months ago, while overseas.
"To leave Barbados to go and work in the agricultural sector is not as attractive, but we have focussed a lot on that. We now need to focus perhaps a bit more on tourism services in other areas, medical professions etc," he suggested.
The Prime Minister explained that while the Labour Office managed existing programmes, there was no one looking for new areas, hence the decision to hire a consultant.
"This person will go out to the cruise ships, to hospitals in Canada, and wherever there are indications from our diplomatic staff. The objective would be for that person to find employment consistent with what young people would like to do if they leave Barbados," he stated.
Mr. Thompson stressed that if persons were not pursuing agriculture here, they?? would not want to go and pursue it elsewhere. "Certainly, not unless you have modern greenhouses and other agricultural practises that would be consistent with that; but we do have skills here that I think other people want, and we need to match what is available elsewhere to the skills that we possess as Barbadians," he told the media.