Guyana’s expanding energy economy is placing new pressure on the country’s labor market, with businesses requiring workers who can meet demand across oil and gas, construction, logistics, manufacturing, technical services, hospitality, information technology, agriculture, retail, and engineering.
Minister of Labour and Manpower Planning Keoma Griffith, said the government is responding through manpower planning, labor market forecasting, technical training, and job-matching systems designed to better connect training with employer demand.
Griffith made the comments at the fourth annual Local Content Summit 2026, held under the theme “From Policy to Prosperity: Unlocking Opportunities Through Collaboration.”
The Minister said Guyana must address its labor shortage directly if businesses are to grow and Guyanese workers are to benefit from new opportunities.
He said workforce development must be guided by actual labor market demand, rather than training programs that operate separately from business needs.
“Recognizing [this], our government has placed increasing emphasis on manpower planning, skills anticipation, and labor market forecasting to ensure that training investments remain aligned with the needs of a rapidly transformed economy,” Griffith said.
He said the Ministry is advancing a manpower strategic planning framework that includes the establishment of a Labor Market Observatory. The observatory is expected to identify skills gaps, forecast labor demand, analyze wage and employment trends, and help ensure training programs respond to national development priorities.
Griffith said labor needs are emerging across the oil and gas industry and the wider business environment that supports it. He said the government’s objective is to build a workforce that is skilled, employable, and ready to support companies operating in Guyana’s changing economy.
Meanwhile, President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, announced that the oil and gas company has commissioned an industrial baseline study to assess Guyana’s workforce capacity and future labor demand as the oil and gas sector expands.
“It will help us with two things: an understanding of what is today’s baseline of workforce capacity [and] what can the education institutions deliver by way of additional training to raise the capability of that capacity,” he said.
Routledge said the work is needed because Guyana must understand not only the labor needs of oil and gas, but also the demand from other sectors.
