If people are talking about “AI immigrants”, what they’re really saying is this: instead of a few hundred foreign workers arriving at Sangster or Norman Manley, we’re inviting millions of invisible digital workers into every office, call centre and construction site at once. For a small, service-heavy, outward-facing economy like Jamaica’s, that matters a lot more than the immigration debates you hear in the US or UK.
Right now, Jamaica’s jobs are concentrated in services – public services, wholesale and retail, hotels and restaurants, tourism, plus a big informal hustle economy – with agriculture and construction as the next biggest employers. Together, community/social services and wholesale-retail-hotels account for just over half of employment, while agriculture and construction absorb more than a quarter. Tourism, BPO, and other services are core to growth and foreign exchange. That’s exactly the kind of economy where AI can both do the most damage and the most good.
Across Latin A…
