Guyana’s Centre for Local Business Development executed a Labour Assessment study in Q3 2023 funded by the Greater Guyana Initiative (GGI).
The Centre undertook the study to assess the challenges of the labour market; fill gaps in existing labour and workforce data in five priority sectors through primary qualitative and quantitative data collection; select the five cross-cutting sectors critical to Guyana’s development and rapidly expanding economy; and make comprehensive recommendations regarding actions stakeholders can take to close workforce skills gaps in these sectors.
The study focused on five sectors critical to Guyana’s development: Agriculture, Construction, Health, Transport and Logistics, and Oil and Gas. Based on available data, the study assessed that these five sectors would require 52,396 additional workers by 2028, surpassing the projected available educational output for the entire economy.
According to the findings, high attrition rates, inadequate skill development, and limited immigration policies exacerbate labour shortages combined with escalating economic growth across the entire economy. Meeting the escalating demands will require a comprehensive approach, including increased educational and training capacities, focused immigration policies, and adopting mechanization and automation in certain industries.
In terms of the offshore Oil and Gas sector, the main driver of the economy, the study found that there is a projected expanding demand for new workers, a scarcity of experienced engineering professionals, and a lack of institutions to provide specific nautical skills, despite efforts from the Ministries of Labour and Education.
This study was a crucial aspect of the GGI, which aims to provide meaningful support for Guyanese communities to help develop the local workforce, build human capacity, advance education, and improve healthcare, all to promote sustainable economic diversification for a growing Guyana.
- Address the shortage of skilled engineers — expand UG’s capacity to accommodate more students, providing scholarships to students to attend private universities. Introduce pre-university bridging programs in science and math to allow more students to qualify for degree programs
- Improved STEM-focused education at the primary and secondary levels, currently underway in Guyana, has the potential to steer more students into engineering programs at the University level
- Advocate for expanded immigration of engineers to meet immediate needs
- Integrate transversal skills such as teamwork, time management, workplace ethics and other interpersonal skills into the classroom setting beginning in the early years of primary school to impart these critical aspects of development into young learners
- Cultivate the future generation of Guyanese oil and gas industry leaders; while the conversation around oil and gas workforce generally focuses on the need for skilled technicians, there is a need to cultivate the future management and leadership cadres that will assume leading roles in the sector over time
- Integrate health and safety training (HSE) and culture into traditional education programs as a requirement to begin to develop an HSE culture early
- Significantly expand the capacity of BIT to deliver training in the skilled trades to 10, 000 students per year
- Support programs like the Nation’s School partnership with City and Guilds to expand beyond prior recognition of learning to include more specialized qualifications that are easily recognized by multinational firms. Target school leavers and unemployed youth
- Continue to build a portfolio of micro credentialing programs at TVETs and online to keep pace with rapid changes in the O&G sector
- Develop more dynamic career pathways for TVET learning to enable students and job seekers to gain a solid understanding of their career choices and whether and which skilled trade is best suited to them
- Form partnerships with O&G enterprises to expand learnerships and apprenticeships and enhance on-the-job training for students enrolled in TVETs
- Plan ahead to transition workers from O&G into other sectors
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