Business
Jamaica: Jobs initiative launched
Opposition officials contend the emergency employment plan will not meaningfully decrease the official 12.8 percent unemployment rate.
During her inaugural speech earlier this month, Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller said her administration will use “state resources” to stimulate employment.
Simpson-Miller’s PNP won 42 seats in Jamaica’s 63-seat Parliament in the December 29 national election.
Her PNP said it would try to renegotiate roughly 25 percent of a troubled US$400 million road program financed by China in order to transfer some of the money to the jobs program as a way to kickstart the economy.
But Transport, Works and Housing Minister Omar Davies said in Parliament that US$188.5 million has already been committed by the previous government. He said his ministry will “ascertain where it would be possible to make alterations to the scope or to stop them.”
Last week, Simpson-Miller called on the private sector to hire at least one qualified, jobless islander under another job-creating initative she dubbed Jamaica Employ. She estimated some 40,000 people could resume working if businesses comply.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
