Kavan Gayle warns construction skills shortage could slow Jamaica housing push

Government Senator Kavan Gayle has cautioned that Jamaica’s housing and infrastructure programme could be slowed by a shortage of trained tradespeople, even with billions of dollars available for development. He raised the concern in the Senate on Friday during debate on the National Housing Trust (Amendment) (Special Provisions) Act, 2026, which would allow the Government to keep transferring $11.4 billion each year from the NHT to the Consolidated Fund for another five years.

Gayle said financing remains important, but warned that the lack of carpenters, masons, electricians, plumbers, steel workers and finishers is becoming a major barrier to meeting the country’s building targets. He argued that projects can still stall after money has been identified and contractors have been engaged because there are not enough qualified workers available.

“So everywhere financing is available, and contractors are secured, [but] projects cannot proceed efficiently without sufficient skilled workers, and so you have this shortage in relation to the number of carpenters, masons, steel workers, electricians, plumbers, and the finishers…it would have caused a delay…of certain projects,” Gayle said.

“A delay in project completion, difficulty in staffing multiple projects at the same time. It would have caused a reduced productivity, and you might even have quality assurance challenges [and] we would have seen it in some of the projects,” he added.

His comments moved the discussion beyond the politics of the NHT drawdown and focused instead on what he described as a wider weakness in the construction sector. Gayle said Jamaica has been pushing an ambitious housing agenda while also carrying out road projects, tourism developments, public infrastructure work and reconstruction after disasters, all of which compete for the same limited labour force.

The veteran trade unionist said the shortage has several causes, including skilled workers leaving Jamaica for jobs overseas, an older workforce, and too few new graduates entering construction trades. He said construction workers often move from one site to another as new developments open, making it harder to staff multiple projects at the same time.

“You know, construction employees are nomadic in nature, so they move from one development to another. You create a development and they would move to that development. But then you have others, and so the shortage is driven by several factors [such as] the migration of skilled workers overseas, because if these workers have an opportunity and they are skilled workers, they’re going to move to a space to which we cannot really compete,” he told the Senate.

Gayle also said some employers may be worsening the gap by seeking only experienced workers instead of helping newly trained people gain practical exposure. He said developers often want workers who are already fully prepared for the job, but those workers command higher pay and can also find opportunities outside Jamaica.

“There are some developers who are employers who want what I consider ready-made. They don’t want to take those graduates coming from institutions. They want the experience, but the experience comes with a particular price…and because of that level of experience they are valuable elsewhere,” he said.

He called for a stronger national response involving the Government, employers, unions and training bodies. One option he proposed was a formal arrangement between the NHT and HEART/NSTA Trust to train workers specifically for the needs of the housing sector.

“To address this challenge, and [Education] Minister [Dana] Morris Dixon is here, consideration should be given to some sort of a formal partnership between the NHT and the HEART Trust in creating a more dedicated construction trades programme aligned to the trust’s housing demands,” Gayle said.

Gayle noted that the NHT has reported exceeding its housing delivery targets and has put hundreds of billions of dollars into housing development in recent years. However, he said money by itself will not fix Jamaica’s housing problems if the shortage of skilled labour is left unresolved.

He also pointed to contractor classifications and procurement limits which he said have become outdated as building costs rise. Gayle argued that reviewing those thresholds could allow more contractors to take part in housing projects and strengthen delivery capacity.

Still, he maintained that the labour gap remains one of the biggest issues facing the sector. “If Jamaica is to meet its long-term housing targets and broaden infrastructure ambitions…we need the skills in pursuing that, and the reality is that we must continue investing heavily on training and certification and workforce development,” said Gayle.