THE MINISTRY of Labour says it is disturbed by the growing number of Jamaican workers who absconded from the Farm and Factories Programme in Canada last year, and will be taking steps to arrest this trend.
The Ministry's 1999 statistical bulletin shows that during last year, a total of 164 persons went absent without leave (AWOL) from the programme. This was 36 more workers than the 128 who ran away the previous year.
Last year's increase reflects the largest jump over the past four years. In 1995, 104 workers went AWOL. This increased to 108 in 1996 and jumped to 132 in 1997.
"We are very concerned about it," Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Anthony Irons said yesterday.
He said the Canadian authorities have not made heavy weather of the increase, but said the Ministry would be taking steps to ensure that the problem was checked.
"We are going to have to tell the Members of Parliament to be very careful when we are nominating persons," the Permanent Secretary said. Persons who are employed in the Overseas Employment Programme, which offers jobs on farms and factories in Canada and the United States, are usually nominated by parliamentarians. However, the Ministry has responsibility for making the final selections.
The number of workers in the United States who went AWOL decreased from 54 in 1998 to 52 last year.
For its part, the Ministry says it will strictly monitor nominees, so as to ensure that the problem is dealt with, Mr. Irons said. "What we will do is to be more careful." He, however, argued that while last year's increase is unacceptable, there has been a general reduction in the number of workers who have ran off in Canada, since the programme started in the 1960s. He said in the earlier years of the programme, there were occasions when over 200 workers absconded.
Among the measures which were employed by the Ministry four years ago to deal with the problem was to prevent residents of the Kingston and urban St. Andrew from participating in the programme. These persons, he said, were more likely to abscond than those from rural areas. He said the programme is geared towards farmers, most of whom are from the rural communities.
