A chance to fill jobs, or cut them?
SOMEONE at the States must have been pretty switched on last week. ‘You know we’ve got the best part of 100 people looking for work now Intersurgical is closing? We’ve got loads of jobs vacant… why don’t we see if we can fill some of them?’
‘Great idea. Let’s get ourselves down to Beau Sejour and see how it goes!’
And it went well, so we’re told. Good news for the unfortunate Intersurgical crew, and the States departments involved. Less so for the taxpayer, and even for politicians, who this very week have been promoting enhanced productivity in the workforce – and thereby paying more taxes – as the solution to avoid having to import people to keep the economy bubbling along in the decades to come.
Scary to hear too that some of these public sector jobs have been vacant for two years. How many private sector businesses would have held positions open for so long, and still be interested in filling them? It should be clear that after such a time, the committee/business unit can operate without.
For the good of the island, 100 people taken on in wealth-producing businesses would have a far more significant impact than filling vacancies in the public sector.
Even better culling some of those vacant States posts completely would have enabled the States to cut some unnecessary jobs, just as it once promised taxpayers it would.