Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves is calling on Vincentians to pursue studies in keeping with the demands of the future job market.
He said the leadership of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College are tired of hearing him speak about career counselling and better interaction, “so that young people get to understand more about what is out there, what the future holds, and what opportunities and things that they could pursue.
“… a lot of people just focus on that kind of first job — if I could get a job,” he said on Star FM, the ruling Unity Labour Party’s radio station.
Gonsalves said that over time, there are trendy subjects, with psychology having been popular about 15 years ago.
“Then about 10 years ago, we saw a whole bunch of people trying to take forensics as CSI was a big thing on TV …” he said, adding that a lot of people are now studying business management and business studies.
“And again, nothing is wrong with any of these pursuits,” the 54-year-old minister said, adding that in his day, law and medicine were the preferred disciplines, which was followed by a tendency towards engineering.
“But there are so many opportunities, and there are so many options, and where I sit in the Ministry of Finance, a lot of times I’m trying to hire people to help me get things done, nobody with degrees in project management, because the 10 people who have those degrees already had jobs,” Gonsalves said.
“Not enough civil engineers, electrical engineers, chemical engineers. So, we’re importing people from outside; not enough people with degrees in port and aviation management. A lot of business management. But can you run an airport? Can you run a seaport? Not enough people with those particular skill sets.”
He said that as the Vincentian economy and the country evolve, “we have to counsel our children better to say, ‘These are the opportunities on the next horizon.’”
Gonsalves said the Ministry of Economic Planning was doing labour force surveys and market surveys to try to find out from employers where they see the job market over the next five years.
“It’s not always degree skills. They’ll tell you, ‘Well, you can’t find a good chef, you can’t find a good pastry chef. You can’t find a good bartender’,” the finance minister said.
“You’re a man who could pour you a beer, but if you ask for a particular mixed drink or something, yeah, they don’t know how to make it,” he said, noting that these are different skill sets.
“And so, we’re doing a lot of that work, and having that work informs back the kind of classes we teach at the technical and vocational level and at the formal academic level,” Gonsalves said.