Gobierno: despido de tres mil empleados públicos comenzará a fin de mes

Layoff list not final yet

Fewer public sector workers will be placed on the breadline than the 3 000 originally proposed in Government’s retrenchment process.

This was the disclosure coming from Labour Minister, Senator Dr. Esther Byer-Suckoo, as she responded to questions from the media yesterday at the Island Inn Hotel.

Seeking to dispel rumors that more persons were being sent home than originally stated, she stated, “When we started this exercise, we said that from a fiscal perspective we could get where we wanted to get if 5 000 people went home, but we sat with the unions and it came down and came down and came down and I do not know where it is going to end up because it is certainly below 3 000.

It may be even much lower than that because we looked at the modalities and because the unions have tried to put other options and we have looked at other options as well”.

However, the Labour Minister was unable to outline exactly where the civil service was in compiling the list of those that will be handed their walking papers by month end, saying it was a lengthy process as all the necessary criteria had to be considered.

In its efforts to identify the more vulnerable persons and those who were the sole breadwinners, the list, Byer-Suckoo indicated, would be sent to the unions for more fine-tuning.

She explained that layoffs would start at month end, and would stretch until the end of March, stressing that there would not be one major termination of all persons listed in a single period. (JMB)

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