STATIN: Census takers walking off the job

Sharp competition in the job market has been cited by Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke as the primary reason for the Statistical Institute of Jamaica’s (STATIN) inability to recruit the full complement of workers to carry out the population census across the country.

However, two lawmakers – one on the government and the other on the opposition benches – have argued that there are many qualified young people in their constituencies who are actively seeking jobs.

St Andrew South East Member of Parliament Julian Robinson told The Gleaner on Wednesday that he was surprised to hear that the main reason the attrition rate was so high among STATIN’s census takers was because of stiff competition in the job market.

Robinson said that several of his constituents are qualified and looking for jobs, not noted that many people may not know that STATIN is still recruiting census takers.

Clarke told members of the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament on Wednesday that despite increasing its fees by 100 per cent, STATIN was struggling to recruit an adequate number of workers to carry out the countrywide exercise.

An initial completion deadline for this month has been extended although STATIN is unable to provide a new cut-off point to collect the data.

The agency targeted a complement of 7,000 census takers but has only been able to recruit 4,000 persons to carry out the job.

Clarke argued that STATIN is facing a serious challenge attracting talent based on the significant demand for labour to carry out the specific tasks required by the agency.

“The nature of the challenge has to do with the tightness in the labour market and ability of persons to fill that role,” he told his fellow legislators.

STATIN Managing Director Carol Coy said that some persons who were trained and employed could not deal with the challenges involved in collecting data and walked off the job.

She added that STATIN had to “innovate several weeks ago to introduce additional modalities of data collection, including electronic and other means”.

However, Robinson said that spoke with persons who had been trained but did not get a call from STATIN and went off to pursue other jobs.

“These are people who were trained and willing to participate in the exercise. In many cases, they were frustrated, as STATIN failed to contact them,” he added.

Highlighting what he called an exceptionally high turnover of staff to carry out the census, Robinson said that 2,200 people who were trained by STATIN had left.

Clarendon North Central Member of Parliament Robert Morgan indicated that many young people in his constituency are also job hunting.

He questioned whether STATIN was doing passive or active recruitment of census takers.

“I know of many rural communities that have a lot of students who have left high school and have subjects and are unemployed. So is it that they have to go on a website and apply or is there an active effort to attract young people who are unemployed, especially in rural areas, that need jobs?” he said.

STATIN reported that the unemployment rate declined to a record low of 6.6 per cent in July 2022.

A fall in the unemployment rate generally indicates that more people are finding jobs.

The 2022 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions shows that the population age 14 years and older stood at a little below than 2.1 million. It reported that the labour force was a just above 1.5 million. This suggests that there could be some 739,700 people outside of the formal workforce.