Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Writer

THE JAMAICA Manufacturers' Association (JMA) is laying blame at the foot of the island's main skills training institute, HEART Trust/NTA, for the absence of a pool of adequately skilled recruits in the productive sector.

In a report on hidden costs in the sector, released to the public this week, the JMA says the trust has lost its way and cites this as one of the main obstacles to competitiveness.

Certification emphasis

"In earlier times, the VDTI provided 'hands-on' skills training by skilled vocational instructors and master craftsmen in various skill areas. Most, if not all, of these instructors have separated or emigrated and their skills training has been replaced by a burdensome bureaucracy focus on reinventing the certification wheel. HEART has changed into a certification body," the JMA reports.

This deficiency, the JMA says, came to the fore when the Jamalco bauxite company was forced to establish its own training school to meet the demand for TIG welders, resulting from its plant-expansion project.

The JMA says only a few of HEART's affiliate training institutes, such as JAGAS, Toolmakers Institute and the Runaway Bay HEART Academy, "for some reason escaped dismantling by HEART certification elite".

The JMA says the low academic achievement among school-leavers also factors into the island's lack of skilled recruits, as these persons do not meet the educational standards to enter training institutes such as HEART.

"Potential employees face the same problem, and if such persons are taken on to the workforce, they require special training and high, costly levels of supervision," the report states.

Insecurity

The document is also blaming the country's high rate of violence for reducing competitiveness, stating that the island's poor public security has forced producers to run single-shift operations.

Where 24-hour shifts are necessary, the JMA says, manu-facturers have had to maintain 12-hour shifts in the interest of employee safety, but at an additional cost of four hours overtime on each shift.

The JMA says the state of insecurity has forced many manufacturers to expend resources, which were not budgeted for, to pay the police to do the jobs they were already employed to do, or to engage security from dons.

gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com