Parliamentarians debated the Apprenticeship Bill 2024 in the House Of Assembly on Wednesday. The debate was led by Minister of Labour and the Public Service and Member of Parliament for Golden Gates, the Hon. Pia Glover-Rolle.
Glover-Rolle told Parliamentarians, “through this program our people will be offered hands on opportunities to learn on the job and begin the process of building a career. We see this as an historic institution that will have the impact similar to an NIB, that was first introduced a long time ago and has changed lives in our nation, has advanced our nation and has secured our citizen’s future.”
The Minister addressed the issue of the skills of the Bahamian labour force not matching the needs of employers. “As we seek to drive unemployment even lower, we must face the fact that the lack of employability in segments of our population may affect employment. The truth is that in many cases jobs are available but we’re simply having an issue filling them or keeping them filled. We currently at the Department of Labour have hundreds of jobs available in our jobs portal waiting to be filled by qualified Bahamians.”
The Apprenticeship Program is expect to begin sometime in 2024.
