Prime Minister says discussions commence on welcoming skilled workers

By Zoila Palma Gonzalez: Employers across the country are facing challenges finding skilled workers.

Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Economic Development, Dr. Osmond Martinez explained that in 2022, there were 21,000 workers imported from Central America.

This data was retrieved from the latest Housing and Population Census.

CEO Martinez says that the BPO and Tourism sector are boosting and their numbers and have attracted young people, young, educated people who are well rewarded in terms of their salary.

“So they don’t want to go and work in the construction sector or the agro -productive sector. So the citrus, banana, the sugar industry continue to face challenges year after year. And so, there is an importation of hundreds and hundreds of workers every year,” CEO Martinez stated.

Prime Minister John Briceno has indicated that discussions have commenced on targeting skilled laborers including masons and electricians.

“We want to make sure, okay, what is it that we need, we needs masons? Okay let’s try to bring in masons. We need some more electricians, let’s being in more electricians. These are the kind of people that we need to bring into Belize so it has to be targeted migration. We cannot continue the migration of the past where borders are pretty much open, you come and go visit your aunty, you like it, you stay. No, we have to follow the law, there’s a process. But right now, we need more workers, the economy has been growing very fast and so we need to be able- and at the same time, we find a lot of Belizeans that have left to go to work in the United States, some all the way to the UK,” the Prime Minister said.

In addition, the Prime Minister added that employers in the U.S. and U.K. are preying on workers in Belize.

PM Briceno also indicated that the quality of life in Belize is much better since we might not have all the fancy things and living “hand to mouth” making payments for rent, car payments etc as those in the U.S.

On the contrary, Belizeans work and have time to spend with family, friends to socialize and to enjoy hobbies.

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