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Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller brought some exciting news to the country at her party conference last Sunday. This is very important, as it is said she is hinging her party's anticipated return to power on employment. What makes this so exciting is that countries great and small have been struggling with this problem since the recession.With 99 per cent literacy, enterprise-level training and great wealth, few countries are in a better position to weather a recession than the United States (US). The summer before the recession started, its unemployment rate stood at 4.4 per cent. That figure is now 9.5 per cent and the Federal Reserve, in its latest forecast, does not see a return to the pre-recession rates in the foreseeable future. Although the jobs recovery is getting faster and stronger each month, if the pace of hiring were to double right now, it would take until 2013 to recapture the 8.4 million lost jobs. And we can safely expect another economic downturn before that time.
I expect the next decade to be marked by slower growth and greater volatility. Some of those who lost jobs will have to find something else to do, as many of the jobs lost are gone for good. Nervous employers have found ways to produce the same level of goods and services with fewer employees. Many are employing themselves, and by doing so, creating jobs for one or two others.
In an interview on a morning talk show, the chairman of the People's National Party was unable to explain or expand on much of what the party leader had promised, and one got the impression that the details were yet to be worked out. And that concerns me.
It is businesses that create jobs, and I can see no businessman that is going to get involved in an emergency employment programme which Mrs Simpson Miller expects to start 'immediately' to deal with our short-term problems. "It also requires a longer-term platform for sustained growth and development, the two must work together," she said. The problem with this arrangement is that the former - Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme (JEEP) - virtually removes all possibility for the latter to take off.
Old news
The JEEP initiative is eerily reminiscent of a 'crash programme' of the 1970s. Although it secured a landslide election win for the PNP in 1976, it played no small part in the country's crash a year or two later. In that programme, I know of two persons - a pump attendant and a worker at a dry-cleaning establishment - who left their jobs to join the crash programme. And why not? They had nothing to do and collected a cheque at the end of each week.
These emergency employment programmes are nearly always the same, with the same outcome. Little or no productive activity takes place, inflation soars, and there are lots of openings for corruption. There are those who criticise the 1970s crash programme, saying it was a huge waste of money. My concern was for the young people who were associated with the beneficiaries and saw the workings, as I believe it distorted their understanding of what constitutes work.
Could that have influenced the present attitude of a sizeable portion of today's workforce?
I am quite sure the International Monetary Fund will not accommodate any such initiative, so I am now wondering where the resources will come from to fund this programme. It certainly does not exist at the moment.
It takes time to create jobs. And they usually come when businesses expand or new businesses start. What do we have to offer. MP Phillip Paulwell - one of those on the platform - said some time ago that Jamaica was not attractive to investors. That is not surprising if they are harassed by extortionists and members of an archaic trade union system.
Workforce quality
But what is the quality of our human capital? At present, the literacy rate is 86 per cent. That's a bad start, but it does not tell the full story. There is also a large number of semi-literates - persons who can do little more than sign their names. They are not trainable. Many of those who get into training programmes suffer from the absence of an attitude skills component. Even the trainers sometimes fail to recognise that the right attitude is critical to all aspects of organisational performance.
We need to train individuals to use thinking processes that maximise their ability to succeed. Many of our children continue to be educated in obsolete ways, jeopardising the skill endowment for tomorrow's workforce. The effects of education on economic growth and enterprise performance are incalculable.
I gather there is to be a tax incentive for employers who hire more staff. This must be coming from a US initiative. But which employer is going to increase his personnel commitments for lower taxes? What I see happening here is the addition of wife, grandmother and girlfriend to the payroll. Nothing more.
For those waiting for Mrs Simpson Miller's solution to kick in, may I remind them that even if they had a chance of working, the next election is a year away. They need to start thinking for themselves. There are significant changes in the skill content of jobs. The demand for new skills is emerging. Employers' hiring decisions are beginning to reflect the applicants' actual skills and knowledge, not just their formal job experience and years of schooling. We have entered the era of high productivity growth, and that's not good news for the traditional job seeker.
Studies have found that qualitative measures of human capital - academic and functional competency - are strongly associated with GDP growth at the country level and sales growth at the enterprise level. Automation, global competition and technological efficiencies have combined to create a different employment landscape. This is why whenever jobs are lost - or gained - it is important to understand the reason. In order to be effective, government interventions to provide skills transfer at the enterprise level need to be based on a deep knowledge of the existing skill gaps. Of course, all this hard technical work may not be necessary to win the next election, since the Jamaica Labour Party has chosen to ignore the lessons of history and cling to the 'fool-fool' notion that planning, prudence and performance win elections in Jamaica