Labour importation is on the table

There is a reason the conversation about importing labour policy is intensifying: Jamaica is trying to recover, rebuild and grow at a time when execution is expensive and delays are severely punishing. Even before Hurricane Melissa the economy was running close to its labour limits. The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) reported unemployment at a record-low 3.3 per cent in July 2025, which in plain terms is a tight labour market. Add post-Melissa rebuilding demand and the outcome is predictable: more projects, more work, more pressure, and not enough skilled hands to deliver at speed, within reasonable costs. All things considered, the growing calls from the private sector and others are not frivolous. The main argument sounds like this:

Growth is mainly constrained by people so Jamaica must expand labour supply. If domestic training pipelines can’t fill gaps quickly enough, then labour importation becomes a rational instrument.

That argument has merit and is globally familiar. Even in advanced economies, governments use immigration policy to address labour shortages and drive output.

The second argument is even harder to dismiss: Jamaica has for decades participated in global labour mobility. We lose talent and labour, but benefit from remittances in return.

A third argument is political and practical: when labour shortages delay projects, stunt strategy and drive up expenses, those costs rarely stay contained. They ripple through pricing, weaken demand and eventually land on the state through lower tax revenues, higher unemployment and rising social pressure.

Therefore, it is understandable that many observers eyeing 2026 recovery see one central risk: Jamaica has money and projects on the table, but insufficient capacity to execute.

Up to this point, there is nothing irrational about the discussion. Yet, the debate is dangerously incomplete, because if Jamaica tries to import its way out of execution constraints, without pricing the subsequent consequences and blind spots, we will reproduce the very crises that larger, wealthier countries are now scrambling to contain.

Labour Importation Blind Spots

Our blind spot is not immigration; it is national planning and accounting. Let us take what transpired in Canada as a case in point: after a period of rapid post-pandemic inflows, Canada shifted to a restrictive posture amid growing public concern about housing pressures and social services strain. The Canadians have explicitly reduced targets in their 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan, resulting in projections of a marginal population decline in upcoming years. Has Canada suddenly discovered that immigrants are undesirable? No. The country simply unearthed its limits: housing supply, infrastructure capacity, public services, and political pressures.

To be clear, the takeaway is not “don’t import labour.” The lesson is that labour inflows must be carefully sequenced and matched to national capacity. If Canada, with its scale, fiscal bandwidth and land mass, had to acknowledge those constraints publicly, Jamaica dares not pretend that ours, which are even greater, do not exist. Our land constraints are not theoretical, and infrastructure constraints are not hypothetical. Indeed, our public services operate under pressure — in normal times.

Large-scale labour importation is not simply “workers arriving.” Labour arrives with households. That demands shelter, transport, utilities, food, health services and more. It places new stress on rental prices, traffic congestion, informal settlements, and social stability.

Then there is the real risk that labour importation becomes a way to lower costs, rather than a development tool. In other countries we have seen this justified as “competitiveness.” However, the outcome has been wage suppression and weakened bargaining power. That burden may land on Jamaican workers, if other examples hold true.

Another blind spot is one the UK and Canada have learned the hard way: temporary labour does not remain temporary. Once workers settle, they form networks, extended families follow and culture shifts. Markets struggle to adjust. In many cases, those who arrive as labour later become entrepreneurs and competitors. It is not that this dynamic is negative, but it materially changes the policy calculus. If we design labour importation as a purely transactional stop gap, it is a myopic plan that will falter against reality.

Then there is the domino effect on healthcare, security and education. Even in countries now tightening migration channels, political debate increasingly centres on public service strain. The UK’s migration picture has shifted sharply since 2023, and much of the unease relates to expansion of service systems if the population increases quickly. Jamaica does not have the capacity to do this at speed, without compromising quality and access for citizens.

Finally, let us discuss the blind spot we tend to avoid because it is uncomfortable: social cohesion. Rapid demographic shifts can produce cultural clashes, shifts in norms, and resentment, even in advanced democracies. That resentment may be irrational at times, but it is politically real. If Jamaica believes it can engineer large-scale labour migration without a parallel integration strategy, civic communication plan, and enforcement capacity, then we are repeating a familiar global mistake: pretending policy ends at the border.

We must pursue a mature alternative, importing labour where necessary, and only through a deliberately managed framework that protects national capacity and forces private-sector co-investment. A few questions that should inform this framework are:

1. Which sectors are seriously binding constraints, and what evidence supports that conclusion?

2. What housing and infrastructure capacity exists to absorb inflows, without displacing citizens?

3. What protections prevent labour importation from becoming wage suppression?

4. What skills-transfer mechanisms ensure Jamaica is stronger in five years, not weaker?

Also, as private sector calls for drastic labour reform, it must address its capacity to help fund what is required: training pipelines, housing capacity, service expansion, productivity upgrades, and enforcement. Faster access to labour must come with clear conditions: sector specificity, time-bound pathways, wage floors to prevent undercutting, mandatory skills transfer, and measurable investment in local workforce development to name a few. If we rush to open the floodgates for short-term relief, we must expect to inherit long-term fragility.

One love,

Yaneek Page is the programme lead for Market Entry USA and a certified trainer in Entrepreneurship.