Are the disabled counted as part of the labour force?
Dear Editor,
This is an open letter to Prime Minister Andrew Holness:
Prime Minister, I have been on Youtube listening, for what seems like the umpteenth time today, to your skilfully crafted speech, delivered via the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), on Jamaica’s employment dilemma, and I beg to respectfully interject.
To begin, I would be among the 700,000 Jamaicans you cited as being outside the labour force, except I feel the number is larger, considering that so many Jamaicans, including myself, have never been contacted by a surveyor. You claim that many have chosen not to be formally counted in the labour force. But rather than ask the obvious question: Why would anyone in their right mind choose that, in light of how hard times are? I want to add to the narrative you’re creating, that a major reason the unemployment rate appears as low as it does has to do with a term home-grown economics “experts” have tended to shy away from using: the discouraged worker effect.
In relation to your point that not being work-ready is one reason people are not in the labour force, I am announcing to you and your Administration, again, that I have been work-ready, in line with your definition, for decades, yet I remain unemployed, due to a reason you would not have enumerated — I am physically challenged.
Finding employment has remained a challenge for many of us, even in the wake of the February 14 implementation of the Disabilities Act over a year ago. We would rather be solutions-oriented than complaining, Prime Minister, so could disabled people, like me, be included in the skills training programme geared at expanding the labour force?
Speaking of potential, I have, for a number of years, held a BSC in Business Administration and, as they say at HEART/NSTA Trust, “Education makes you trainable.” Of course, I would need assistance in getting to and from the location as I am chronically broke.