And while Asylum opportunities may be pushing Central Americans north - Belize is not excluded from that!
Many Belizeans have pushed north and are also now US Asylum seekers.
It's created a legit labour shortage at multiple levels of the working class.
We asked the Education Minister about it today:
Jules Vasquez
"And we know that there is what the prime minister likes to call a tight labor situation. At all levels, people are short, even in menial labor, because of this same migratory issue, many Belizeans are going north to try their luck and a lot of them are succeeding. What is this something that came up between yourself and the undersecretary? The number of Belizean asylum seekers who have headed to the United States?"
Francis Fonseca, Min. of Foreign Affairs
"Yeah. No, no, we we discussed that very openly. You know, we, we, we you know, we, we didn't talk in great detail about the the numbers of people going. But I think, you know, you made a very good point earlier. The the whole asylum process, as you rightly pointed out and was affected by the reality that many people said why ask themselves, why should I go through this process when in fact I have an opportunity to get into the United States of America and we found that many of the people who had applied for when they went looking for them had actually left left the country."
"We don't have the full numbers on that, but quite a few, even in my own constituency in Belama, I have noticed a number of families have gone. Right, right, exactly, exactly. A number of families have gone to try their luck, as you said. And I haven't seen them again. So I, I suspect they have been successful in yet in reaching their their destination."
"We don't have anywhere close to the challenge that countries like Jamaica has. I was talking to the Minister of Education from Jamaica there they they're losing I mean I think last year they lost 800 teachers."
"Imagine that. 800 teachers. it so it's an absolutely serious, serious, serious issue. We're nowhere close to that in Belize. But, you know, anytime we lose any of our quality teachers, it's obviously a problem for us. So we see the same thing in the health sector with nurses. Of course, that's been going on for a long time. The reality is we simply cannot compete, obviously, with these developing countries, the developed countries, in terms of what the attractive packages that they're offering teachers and nurses and other professionals."
"And then the point you make about the, you know, the labor pool, you know, that's again, you're absolutely right. You' go to many people in the private sector, they tell you we've can't find labor, we've can't find basic labor of some of these construction projects and other things. So it is it is a real issue."
