Some 7,000 persons will be trained under the Board of Industrial Training Programme (BIT) for 2023, Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton told the National Assembly today.

“Mr Speaker, Budget 2023 provides for us to train about 7,000 persons,” Minister Hamilton said while noting that the country has moved from a place where it had no Ministry of Labour to a place where it is engaged in an aggressive training programme to better position its people to take up jobs in the evolving sectors.

He contended that during its years in Office, the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) trained between 1,300 and 1,500 persons annually under BIT. The programme, he further contended, was centralized, and failed to effectively expose the nation’s young people to the Oil and Gas Sector though oil was discovered offshore Guyana in 2015, and production commenced in 2019.

 Boasting of his Government’s commitment to capacity building and human resource development, the Labour Minister reported that in 2020, approximately 2,000 persons were trained under BIT, 3,086 in 2021 and an additional 4,500 persons in 2022. 

“Mr Speaker, between the period 2020 to now, under our government, we trained 7,500 persons under the Board of Industrial Training,” he reported.

According to Mr. Hamilton, approximately 75.1% of the persons trained are gainfully employed while 4% continue to study.

Minister Hamilton was keen on noting that the Board of Industrial training programme has been expanded to include courses of study related to Oil and Gas. He said already, the Ministry of Labour has signed a number of MOUs with various companies within the Private Sector.

Meanwhile, he told the National Assembly that the Ministry of Labour, received 913 complaints from walk-in employees, of which 85% have been resolved, with the Labour Ministry recovering $40M on behalf of employees from their employers.

Further, he told the House that labour relations in the country are improving, explaining that in 2022, the Labour Ministry countersigned 23 Collective Labour Agreements, which were signed between labour unions and employers.

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