PRODUCTIVITY IS NOT A SPEECH: IT IS THE PRODUCT OF LEADERSHIP By Richard Hugh Blackford

After Eleven Years, Jamaica Deserves More Than Another Lecture For the second consecutive Diaspora Conference, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has lamented Jamaica's low productivity and called for a "revolution" in the country's work ethic. Once again, he has appealed to Jamaicans living overseas to encourage family and friends back home to work harder, become more efficient, and embrace a different value system. It is a message that sounds inspiring, but it is also remarkably familiar as according to reports, the Prime Minister delivered almost the same argument at the same conference two years ago, emphasizing that Jamaicans must move away from "victimhood" and take greater responsibility for their own economic destiny.

The problem that I have with these speeches is that after nearly eleven years in office and almost one year into an unprecedented third consecutive term, this conversation can no longer be treated as an abstract discussion about culture. It must now be judged against the record of the administration that has had more than a decade to shape Jamaica's economic direction.

LEADERSHIP MUST BE MEASURED BY RESULTS Every government enters office with targets and objectives, and every Budget presentation made by an Administration is intended to move the country closer to those goals. Prime Minister Holness has now presided over eleven national budgets, each promising growth, investment, productivity, and prosperity. The obvious question is therefore not whether Jamaica has a productivity problem. The question is: How have the Government's productivity targets performed each year, and what corrective measures have been implemented when those targets were not achieved? You see, Leadership is not simply identifying problems. Leadership is creating the policy environment that solves them. That responsibility rests squarely with the Government.

PRODUCTIVITY IS MORE THAN WORKER ATTITUDE The Prime Minister continues to frame productivity primarily as an issue of work ethic and cultural attitudes. Certainly, attitude, discipline and time management matter; but productivity is not simply about asking employees to work harder.  It is the outcome of a complex relationship between education, technology, investment, infrastructure, management, innovation, wages, and opportunity.A worker equipped with outdated technology, limited training, poor transportation, inadequate supervision, and low wages cannot magically become five times more productive because a politician tells them to change their mindset. Productivity is created by systems, not slogans.

THE DIASPORA PROVES THE PRIME MINISTER’S THESIS WRONG Perhaps the greatest contradiction in the Prime Minister's argument was sitting right in front of him, as the audience at the Diaspora Conference consisted largely of Jamaicans who left the island because Jamaica failed to provide the opportunities they needed. Those same Jamaicans have become business owners, doctors, engineers, educators, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, technology professionals, executives, and community leaders across North America, Europe, and elsewhere. Their success tells a powerful story, especially providing proof that Jamaicans are not inherently lazy, and that they are not naturally unproductive. Their stories confirm that when provided with functioning institutions, access to capital, quality education, modern technology, and opportunities for advancement, they compete successfully with anyone in the world. The issue is therefore not the quality of Jamaican people. It is the quality of the environment in which they are expected to perform. This is the reason why so many Jamaicans want to leave the island. Data from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2026 Democracy and Development Report for Latin America and the Caribbean confirms that roughly 54 percent of Jamaicans plan to migrate within the next three years. This places Jamaica second only to Haiti in the region regarding the population's intent to leave.

LOW WAGES DO NOT INSPIRE HIGH PRODUCTIVITY It is unrealistic to expect young people leaving school or college to enthusiastically embrace careers that pay the equivalent of approximately US$100 per week in hotels or call centres. For many workers, that income barely covers transportation and lunch expenses. When employees see little opportunity for advancement, limited investment in their development, and wages that cannot sustain a decent standard of living, motivation inevitably declines. Productivity is not created through speeches but is created when workers believe that greater effort will produce greater rewards for themselves and their families. Without that connection, calls for a productivity revolution become little more than public relations exercises.

EDUCATION MUST DRIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Perhaps nowhere is the disconnect more obvious than within Jamaica's education system. Successive governments have spoken about becoming a knowledge economy, attracting high-value industries, embracing technology, and competing globally. Yet there remains little evidence that the country's curriculum is fully aligned with those ambitions. A country’s Education policy should not exist in isolation but should be directly connected to the nation's economic strategy, labour market demands, technological transformation, and industrial development goals. Students should graduate with the skills that employers need, not qualifications that leave them competing for a shrinking number of low-paying jobs.

TIME FOR A DEDICATED NATIONAL EDUCATION STRATEGY

The Government should seriously consider allowing the Ministry of Education to focus exclusively on education and in the process a comprehensive ten-year national education strategy should be developed with measurable objectives and reviewed twice each year against clearly defined performance indicators. Such a strategy should answer several fundamental questions, including: What industries will drive Jamaica's economy over the next twenty years, and what skills will those industries require? It should ask how should schools, colleges, universities, and vocational institutions prepare students for those opportunities, and what investments are needed in science, technology, artificial intelligence, research, and innovation? Without those answers, discussions about productivity become disconnected from reality.

THE CSEC RESULTS SHOULD ALARM EVERY JAMAICAN The urgency of this conversation is reinforced by recent examination results where fewer than one in five students achieved the benchmark level of passes, Jamaica faces the prospect of entering the future with a workforce that is increasingly underprepared for a rapidly changing global economy. This is not simply an education issue, but also economic, national security, as well as a development issue, as every year that passes without meaningful intervention widens the gap between Jamaica and the countries with which it seeks to compete.

PRODUCTIVITY REQUIRES LEADERSHIP, NOT LECTURES There is nothing inherently wrong with asking Jamaicans to work harder or more efficiently, but there is something fundamentally wrong with placing the burden almost entirely on workers while ignoring the policies, investments, and institutional reforms necessary to support that effort. Governments create the guardrails within which economies operate. They determine investment priorities, education policy, infrastructure development, innovation strategies, and the incentives that encourage businesses to create higher-value jobs. In my view, after nearly eleven years in office, the Prime Minister should spend less time diagnosing the problem and more time accounting for the results of the policies his administration has pursued. Jamaicans have repeatedly demonstrated, both at home and across the diaspora, that they possess extraordinary talent, resilience, creativity, and determination. What they need is not another lecture about productivity. They need leadership that creates the conditions in which productivity naturally flourishes.

Only then will Jamaica move beyond speeches and finally begin realizing the economic potential of its people. Richard Hugh Blackford is a Fine Artist, Author and Social Commentator who resides in Lauderhill, Florida.