MANDEVILLE, Manchester:

The employment forecast for Jamaica shows opportunities in education, health care and social assistance, and professional and business services, including Information Communication Technology.

Hospitality, financial, scientific and technical services, construction, and creative and cultural industries also show strong prospects.

Manager of the Human Development Unit at the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Steven Kerr, made the revelation as he delivered a presentation to secondary and tertiary level students on labour market trends on Tuesday at the Northern Caribbean University campus in Mandeville.

According to Kerr, 1.9 million jobs vanished in 2008 with nearly two-thirds of them in the final quarter of the year. In Jamaica, there were 16,206 job losses between October 2008 and September 2009. He advised the students in attendance to look to global and local labour market trends in making career choices.

In Jamaica, market trends show that the hottest jobs are in management, education and training, sales and marketing, front or desk administration, food services and accounting. "Those are the jobs advertising predominantly in the newspaper ever since 2002," Kerr noted.

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland:

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Dr Christopher Tufton, says that praedial larceny is among a number of issues affecting farmers, which his ministry will be addressing soon.

He made the disclosure during an interview with the media at Woodstock Farm, following a recent tour of several farms in the parish.

Dr Tufton confirmed that foremost among the concerns being raised by farmers were the issues of access to credit and land and praedial larceny.

"All three areas are being addressed as we speak, it is a work in progress. In terms of praedial larceny, we intend to announce a series of measures in the not-too-distant future, we are just fine-tuning that," he said.

With respect to access to credit, he said that, in another couple of weeks, there will also be an announcement with regard to a programme that should make access to credit for farmers an easier task.

BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth:

The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) recently hosted a stakeholders' workshop at the Black River Parish Library.

The workshop was held in collaboration with the National Irrigation Commission, with participation from stakeholders from communities in the Black River Basin. According to NEPA representative, Joy Allen, it was used to garner stakeholders' input in developing and implementing a monitoring and training programme for Black River.

She said that NEPA has recognised the importance of garnering participation of stakeholders at the community level, in looking at the natural resources of the Black River Basin area.

"We are convinced that we will get the support of all the communities, and it is really a collaborative approach involving NEPA, the implementing agencies and the communities, because we fully recognise that without the support of the communities we will not be able to achieve our long-term goal of making the island a place where we can all live and enjoy its natural resources," she said.

-JIS News