The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A labour specialist yesterday expressed hope that legislation for a National Productivity Council will be ready by Parliament's September return, with the initiative bringing "nothing but great benefits for The Bahamas".

Peter Goudie, one of the private sector's representatives on the National Tripartite Council, told Tribune Business he expected progress "very shortly" with the draft legislation having already been forwarded to Dion Foulkes, minister of labour.

With Bahamian companies experiencing productivity levels 17 percent lower than the Caribbean average, according to a 2017 competitiveness survey by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Mr Goudie said the Productivity Council is "one more pillar" to bolster the Bahamian labour force's skill set and output.

"It's my understanding that the legislation has gone to the Minister, and probably gone on to the Attorney General's Office," Mr Goudie told this newspaper. "The actual legislation is going forward, and we expect to see that very shortly. We're very positive about it, as we want to see all these initiatives get moving."

He explained that the National Productivity Council's creation is directly linked to two IDB-funded projects, the $20m Citizen Security and Justice initiative and the $25m Skills for Current and Future Jobs, the latter of which was signed-off by the government last week.

Collectively, all three are designed to tackle skills shortages and mismatches within the Bahamian workforce - a frequent complaint of private sector employers, who say they are unable to find the qualified workers they need in sufficient quantities to take their businesses forward. This, in turn, retards both business development and the Bahamian economy's growth.

"All these are very positive things to try and move our labour market forward, and get the kids employed," Mr Goudie said of the three initiatives. "The National Productivity Council is going to be one more pillar to all this stuff. We really want to see it. By September we should be having progress; let's get moving with it. It's really important."

He added that once the National Productivity Council was created in law, visits to Barbados and Jamaica would be undertaken so that the Bahamas could learn from other Caribbean territories where such institutions have been in place much longer.

Mr Goudie said this would ensure the Bahamas has "a template rather than reinvents the wheel", with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) having already pledged to assist with the National Productivity Council's implementation.

"I can see nothing but great benefits for the country from it. I believe it will happen," Mr Goudie told Tribune Business of the National Productivity Council. "We hope, at the end of the day, it creates better service quality, and gets people more aware of why they should be working a full eight-hour day.

"It's increasing the level of service and awareness of what productivity means. There's a whole driving force behind this. This new government wants to empower the country to do better, and I can't see this being anything but positive for what the Government wants to do. They want to increase productivity, increase employment, and I can't help but think the National Productivity Council will be a help to this thrust."

Mr Goudie said the Productivity Council was being pushed by the National Tripartite Council, the body with three-way union, private sector and government representation that addresses workplace/labour issues, with "everything we agreed on" having been presented to the Government.

A National Productivity Council will oversee mechanisms that measure progress, or regression, in workplace productivity, addressing all related issues as they come up. The Bahamas currently lacks such benchmarking capacity, despite the issue continually vexing many private sector employers.

An IDB report, released earlier this year, said of the Bahamas: "Private sector firms also experience low productivity (17 per cent lower than the Caribbean average); low complexity (existing industries are not closely connected and face challenges in upgrading goods or moving to other industries); and insufficient innovative activity (only 22 per cent of firms innovate, and innovation is more prevalent in the manufacturing sector, while 56 per cent of Bahamian firms are potentially innovative)."

Edison Sumner, the Chamber of Commerce's chief executive, told Tribune Business that he expected the National Productivity Council, together with the two IDB-funded projects, to now move forward "at a very rapid pace".

Also a private sector representative on the National Tripartite Council, Mr Sumner said the initiative had "been a long time coming" amid negotiations between the Government and IDB, and in partnership with the Chamber all three needed to ensure funding was quickly available to implement a skills improvement framework "set up some time ago".

"We expect to see some forward movement on this at a very rapid pace; not only with skills, productivity development and training," he added. "There's also a move to establish a National Productivity Council.

"We expect that to be a follow-on from it [the IDB initiatives]. We can't talk about skills and productivity without productivity measures being in place. A Working Group is working aggressively to put in place the framework for the Productivity Council. We're expecting all this will work in tandem."

Praising the Government for signing-off on the latest IDB programme, Mr Sumner said: "We've been dealing with the issue of skills, productivity and training for a long time, recognising there are still some skills deficiencies in the country.

"We are hoping we will see some good emphasis put in the programme as far as the apprenticeship component is concerned, and the on-the-job training aspects."

The $10 million apprenticeship initiative, part of the $25 million Skills for Current and Future Jobs loan, will include some 1,100 participants by expanding the former administration's National Training Agency (NTA) strategy. A one-year training programme will feature a further 1,350 persons.

Mr Sumner said the apprenticeship initiative is targeted at the maritime, information and communications technology (ICT) and allied medical services sectors - all identified as new industries with growth potential for the Bahamas.

"It's really targeted at those areas where there are growth prospects, new industries and being able to get people trained at the outset," he told Tribune Business. "We think that represents a tremendous amount of growth for businesses and persons operating in these industries. You're talking about getting into new skill sets that do not reside in the country.

"We are looking to move ahead and identity where the real skill shortages are, and putting in training programmes to ensure people are upskilled and take advantage of jobs for the future."