Nov 26 - Government Rejects GSD Claims – Hails Future Job Strategy Success
Responding to the GSD’s statement on the Future Job Strategy and it’s high cost to the Government, No.6 has stated that the GSD’s former Vocational Training Scheme was not structured. A statement adds, ‘the useless GSD Vocational Training Scheme (VTS) which used to pay cheap labour rates of £400 or less a month up to 2011. According to the GSD this discredited scheme had resulted in 28% of those participating obtaining employment after completion. They called this 28% a huge success..’
They note that the present scheme pays individuals minimum wage as the Government believes that it was wrong for the GSD not to have paid individuals a minimum wage rate.
The Government adds that thus far the scheme has seen a success rate of over 54% with 546 out of 999 individuals taking on full time employment at the end of September.
They go on to say, ‘the failure of the 15 years of GSD Government and their alleged structured training is reflected in the published figures in the employment surveys. The decline of the Gibraltarian workforce in the construction industry speaks for itself. This sharp decline between 1996 and 2011 was blamed by successive GSD employment Ministers on the reluctance of Gibraltarians to work in the industry, which was being taken over by imported labour.
The position now is that in 2012 the increase in the number of Gibraltarians in employment was greater in 12 months than the GSD increase in 15 years. The number of full time jobs held by Gibraltarians was up by 6.1% and in all construction jobs up by 11% in the period October 11 to October 2012.’
