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Friday, July 25, 2025

T&T manpower plan coming

by

Andrea Perez-Sobers
434 days ago
20240517
Minister of Planning and Development Pennelope Beckles, centre, with Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago (APETT) president Kala Trebouhansingh, to her right, along with APETT’s executive council at the technical conference on Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Picture Ministry of Planning

Minister of Planning and Development Pennelope Beckles, centre, with Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago (APETT) president Kala Trebouhansingh, to her right, along with APETT’s executive council at the technical conference on Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Picture Ministry of Planning

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment has un­der­tak­en the ad­vance­ment of a Na­tion­al Man­pow­er Plan, which will guide set­ting pri­or­i­ties in terms of crit­i­cal skills need­ed for tar­get­ed ar­eas of de­vel­op­ment, with­in the ed­u­ca­tion and em­ploy­ment sys­tems.

This was re­vealed by Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, as she spoke at the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers of Trinidad and To­ba­go (APETT) tech­ni­cal con­fer­ence on Tues­day at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel.

Beck­les said the plan is be­ing de­vel­oped based on re­search con­duct­ed by the min­istry which re­vealed that there is a sense of ur­gency with­in the busi­ness sec­tor to pro­duce a plan for T&T. What the re­search iden­ti­fied, she said, was the ex­is­tence of skills gaps in ar­eas with­in the lo­cal labour mar­ket.  

“This has al­so been con­firmed by var­i­ous sur­veys such as the World Bank’s En­ter­prise Sur­vey 2010 and the Min­istry of Labour and Small and Mi­croEn­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment’s Va­can­cy Sur­vey Re­port 2012. In the En­ter­prise Sur­vey, 30 per cent of firms in T&T stat­ed that an in­ad­e­quate­ly ed­u­cat­ed work­force was a ma­jor con­straint to busi­ness and de­vel­op­ment,” the min­is­ter out­lined.

Beck­les not­ed that the in­te­gra­tion of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, AI, and dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion in man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­cess­ing presents sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDs) to en­hance pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, ef­fi­cien­cy, and com­pet­i­tive­ness.  

She said by lever­ag­ing AI al­go­rithms, au­toma­tion, and da­ta an­a­lyt­ics, man­u­fac­tur­ing agen­cies can op­ti­mise pro­duc­tion process­es, re­duce waste, and im­prove prod­uct qual­i­ty.  

“Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion al­so en­ables busi­ness­es in SIDs to ac­cess glob­al mar­kets, en­gage in e-com­merce, and par­tic­i­pate in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my, there­by di­ver­si­fy­ing our economies and cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth and de­vel­op­ment. This there­fore places small is­land economies in a po­si­tion to be cat­a­lysts in the glob­al econ­o­my ir­re­spec­tive of size,” the min­is­ter ex­plained.

She in­di­cat­ed that a skilled and eth­i­cal en­gi­neer­ing work­force is es­sen­tial for dri­ving in­no­va­tion, solv­ing com­plex chal­lenges, and en­sur­ing the re­spon­si­ble de­vel­op­ment and de­ploy­ment of tech­nol­o­gy. Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States must in­vest in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, en­gi­neer­ing, and math­e­mat­ics or STEM ed­u­ca­tion, vo­ca­tion­al train­ing, and life­long learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to equip our cit­i­zens with the knowl­edge and skills need­ed to thrive in the 21st-cen­tu­ry econ­o­my. More­over, she said en­gi­neers must ad­here to eth­i­cal stan­dards and prin­ci­ples that pri­ori­tise the well-be­ing of so­ci­ety, pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment, and up­hold hu­man rights.


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