Above: Grenada (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Grenada Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell says nearly 10,000 people could find employment in the country within the near future.

Mitchell’s government has embarked on what he called a “major offensive” for jobs, with programmes such as the De-Bushing Programme and the Farm Subsidy Preogramme.

The latter is slated to employ between 1,600 and 2,000 people, while another programme, the Concrete Road Programme, is slated to provide jobs for more Grenadians, according to Mitchell.

“The workforce is about 40,000, so if we have now 3,500 persons working for the two months and you add another 3,000 who may be there for another two years, and another 1,500 with the Concrete Road Project and Special Projects, will take the number to 8,000 workers,” he said.

Several other projects are also scheduled to come on stream, including the construction of the new House of Parliament and the St Mark’s Mitigation Project, among others.

“We are looking at around 8,000 from government initiatives alone; so you could be talking about 10,000 persons, who will be off the unemployment line,” he said last week.

Mitchell also pointed to the new jobs created at the Sandals resort project, which will open later this year.

“We are going to see a serious dent to the employment at least temporarily in the country,” he said.