PNC brags about Govt’s training programme despite high unemployment rate

Guyana has been battling high rates of unemployment, and despite initiatives that have been implemented by the APNU/AFC Government, statistics revealed that a large percentage of youths continue to remain unemployed, despite being academically qualified for jobs.

However, Peoples’ National Congress Reform member (PNCR) Aubrey Norton on Friday stated that since the APNU/AFC coalition took office, thousands of youths have been provided with tools they need to work among their peers and that many youths have been placed in both appointed and elected positions in society.
“Government has delivered on many of its promises and the country is on the right path. As a government, we have served Guyana well,” said Norton bragged but failed to address the 40 per cent unemployment rate among youths in Guyana.
Additionally, Norton in his declaration at the PNCR’s press conference on Friday, also stated that thousands of young people have been trained in leadership skills over the past four years.
However, this contradicts the statements made by the Finance Ministry’s Finance Secretary, Michael Joseph, who while hammering home the point of arresting unemployment in Guyana at a University of Guyana (UG) Tain Talks event, noted that joblessness also narrows the potential base from which a Government can collect income tax as well as undermines the progress of any country.
He had explained that Guyana’s high unemployment rate has economic and social implications for the country presently and in years to come.
Additionally, Chartered Accountant Christopher Ram had recently pointed out that the APNU/AFC’s inability to effectively address the country’s unemployment rate, where a majority of the population is young people, will present a major challenge for Guyana in the coming years.
In an interview with this publication, Ram spoke of some of the reasons for Guyana’s low employment rate and also expressed the belief that not enough attention is being paid to its economic and social side.
“Part of the problem we have is that we have a very low wage economy,” Ram said, adding “and it discourages people entering into the employment sector. If you get the minimum wage and you have to spend 20 per cent of it on transportation alone, it’s not a great motivator for you to work”.
“(This) is why we have the paradox of employment and yet it is difficult to get people with even the basic skills. The rate these people earn, they say they might as well hustle here and there, rather than getting involved in the formal economy, having to pay NIS and income tax”.
Observers have also expressed worry about the link between unemployment as a signifier for the gradual erosion of the traditional sectors of the economy owing to neglect by the Government as it waits for oil revenues to start flowing.
This will inevitably lead to the dreaded Dutch disease, where the economy cannot stand on one leg. This has been most graphically illustrated over the past few years, in the sugar industry where production has dwindled with the dismissal of the sugar workers, and the Government has not diversified the prime agricultural lands into other crops to create employment and generate foreign exchange by exporting those crops.