Labour Commissioner defends work permit freeze

by Vivian Tyson -SUN Senior Editor

 
 
Labour Commissioner Joan Sutton has defended her decision to maintain a freeze on first time work permits for certain category of workers, saying that her decision was to clear the waiting list currently in the system.

The Immigration Department has placed a hold on first time work permits for Haitian nationals, domestic workers, labourers, babysitters, gardeners, scullions, painters, electricians, plumbers, masons, carpenters, housekeepers, bartenders, managers at different tiers, and other administrative personnel.

However, while the move was lauded by some, it was equally criticized in some quarters. The main bone of contention by some opposing the initiative was that a number of the positions would never be filled by locals, since they consider those jobs demeaning, and as a result, expatriates within certain strata would be needed to fill such chasm.

However, in an interview with The SUN, the Labour Commissioner defended the move, explaining that if the restrictions were to be lifted at this time, there could be a deepening of the job crisis, since there could be more persons looking for jobs than the current unsuccessful number.

“We have a list out for first time work permit applications to be stopped for the time being. The reason is that, you have a lot of persons applying for those jobs, floating in the system and it would not be wise to okay the permits for new persons applying for the same jobs right now. So we have placed a restriction on them,” Sutton said.

According to her, the current crisis came about as a result of the mushrooming of job placement agencies many of whom gave birth overnight. She blamed the agencies for some of the problems now being experienced in the job market.

“In the past, agencies applied for bulk (in work permits), and it was never asked where are these people working? So, that is the problem with that right now,” Astwood further explained.

She said since taking over the reins of the Labour Department earlier this year, many of the agencies have since vanished into thin air.
“When I took over the Labour Department in February, we had four hundred and eighty agency consultancies and at the end of August the number has been down to eighty-three. So, in the process in all of that, we ended up with a lot of persons on work permits who are not actually working.

“So, you have domestic workers, labourers, all these different occupations that are just floating in the system and not working. So, the whole idea is to put a freeze on it for the time being and try and utilize persons who already have work permits and not working,” Astwood explained.

She described the move as a process to clean up the system, and while doing so, it would be foolhardy to open the floodgates, while it is being cleaned up.