$1b TEF-funded tourism pension scheme on track
MINISTER OF Tourism Edmund Bartlett has described the Tourism Workers’ Pension Scheme, which will receive $1 billion in funding from the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), as the final piece in a fourpoint human capital development plan enhancing tourism workers.
The defined compensation scheme is designed to cover all tourism workers ages 18-59 years, whether permanent, contract or selfemployed. This includes hotel workers and persons employed in related industries, such as craft vendors, tour operators, red-cap porters, contract carriage operators and workers at attractions. Benefits will be payable at 65 years or older.
The other three initiatives in the human capital development plan are training, capacity building and creating the ability of Jamaicans to convert knowledge into practical applications; providing a pathway to professionalism and jobs; and improving the social conditions around which the tourism worker lives.
“The business of tourism with our workers is not just about taking you into the hotels and having you serve in style. It is about how we include you in the development process,” Bartlett told tourism workers at a Kingston sensitisation and awareness session at the Knutsford Court Hotel recently.
He described the Tourism Workers’ Pension Scheme as an “act of a Government and people who recognise the value of a set of workers who have been on the wrong end of equity for a long time. This plan will correct much of those inequities”.
Tourism directly employs some 117,000 workers, or 8.8 per cent of the workforce. The minister mentioned plans to bring 29,000 more workers into the industry by 2021. “For that to happen, it means we are going to have to build the capacity of our people to deliver at a higher level of efficiency and to be able also to command the top positions in tourism at every level,” he said.
He cited the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between the ministries of tourism and education, youth and information for a $100-million certification programme for high-school students to gain entry-level qualification in the hospitality industry. Bartlett noted, “Over the summer, 13 teachers will be specially trained to enable us to bring the first cohort of 650 students to start the programme in 30 schools across Jamaica. This is in addition to establishing the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI).”
He said it was the first time in the history of Jamaica’s tourism where within a single year, the country was looking at the total human capacity development structure and infrastructure that takes you from high school through university into the field of competence and then straight into professional pathways within the industry.
Pledging his ministry’s commitment to improving the social conditions of tourism workers, Bartlett said this year, they would be spending $170 million on housing solutions for tourism workers in resort areas across the island. This project is in partnership with the Housing Authority of Jamaica with funding from the TEF. In addition, work will be done with the National Housing Trust to design a special package to help the workers access housing solutions being developed by the agency.
Endorsing the pension scheme, executive director of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), Camille Needham, said her organisation was extremely pleased this was becoming a reality. “You are essential to the sector and go above and beyond the call of duty just to ensure your guests are catered to and they leave the island with a good impression and, more importantly, with a desire to return. For these reasons, the conclusion must be that you, the workers, take care of tourism, and tourism in turn should, in fact must, take care of you,” she told the workers.
She described the pension scheme as a step in the right direction and urged every tourism worker to participate fully so they can reap the benefits in their golden years.