Text and image Ivan Cairo
PARAMARIBO — The advance of artificial intelligence (AI) is not expected to lead to a massive loss of jobs in Suriname for the time being. The local labor market is too small for this, the country has relatively few large companies and the application of new technology in many sectors is still lagging behind. This is what Armand Zunder, chairman of the Progressive Employees’ Organization (PWO), said in conversation with the True Time.
He therefore sees no reason to fear a development in which large groups of employees are replaced by AI in the short term. Especially in large companies, including mining companies, automation and where possible AI applications are becoming increasingly important. However, he believes that the number of companies in Suriname that can invest in such technology on a large scale is limited.
“You cannot compare the Surinamese labor market with large labor markets where you have companies with twelve thousand and sometimes even fifty thousand employees“
Small labor market
The union leader says that the trade union movement is indeed considering the consequences of AI and other technological developments for employees. The subject was also discussed on Monday during a meeting of the Council of Trade Unions in Suriname (Ravaksur), during which discussions were held with “someone who has a lot of knowledge of this matter”.
The PWO chairman mentions the size and composition of the Surinamese labor market as an important difference with larger economies. He estimates it includes about 255,000 to 260,000 people. About fifty thousand of them work for the government and about two hundred thousand are in the private sector.
Zunder thinks that within the private sector there are only a few very large companies, multinationals, state-owned companies such as Staatsolie and trading companies with more than a thousand employees. This makes the situation significantly different than in larger economies, where individual companies sometimes have tens of thousands of employees. “First of all, you cannot compare the Surinamese labor market with large labor markets where you have companies with twelve thousand and sometimes even fifty thousand employees. That is really not the case in our case,” Zunder emphasizes.
Moreover, 60 to 65 percent of Surinamese companies may consist of small and medium-sized enterprises, with micro and small companies making up an important share. These companies in particular do not typically have the resources or need to invest in advanced technology and AI quickly and on a large scale. “These companies are not going to invest in technology in the first place. In most cases, they do it the way they have always done it,” said the PWO chairman. An exception may be companies that export and therefore have to meet international requirements.
Technological lag
Zunder illustrates the relatively slow adoption of technology with an everyday example. He lives in the Commewijne district and sees people sweeping sand from the Wijdenbosch Bridge in the evening. During his student days in Amsterdam, decades ago, he saw sweeper trucks with large brushes that were used for such cleaning work. “With us, forty years later, you don’t even have that,” he says.
The example underlines that Suriname is lagging behind in the introduction of technology in a general sense. On the other hand, larger companies are constantly working on modernization. “The mining companies in particular are continuously in a process of automation and where possible also AI applications.” However, because Suriname only has a limited number of large companies, he does not expect this to lead to widespread displacement of employees in the short term.
According to him, the scale at which companies in Suriname employ staff also plays a role. Zunder says he cannot remember a Surinamese company that once had more than ten thousand employees. At its peak, Suralco was probably one of the largest employers, with an estimated 5,000 employees. By the end of the bauxite operations, the workforce would have been significantly smaller.
Prepare for possible consequences
Although Zunder does not foresee massive job losses due to AI, he believes that the consequences should be considered if technological developments were to make large groups of employees redundant in the future. In such a situation, he believes, a guaranteed minimum income should become part of the policy. “The income policy must then be such that you guarantee people an income.”
But income support alone would be insufficient, according to Zunder. Employees who lose their jobs due to technological changes should have ongoing opportunities to retrain and develop new skills. This can prepare them for sectors where there is still a need for physical workers. He also calls recreation and other forms of social participation important when people are outside the labor process for a longer period of time.
