Bermuda will always need foreign workers, but the Island's students should be better prepared to compete in an ever-changing and global workplace, it was claimed yesterday.

Gil Tucker, chairman of Bermuda Careers Centre, told Hamilton Rotary Club members that the Island would always have to rely on ex-pat workers, if its business centre remained as buoyant as it is at present.

However, he said young Bermudians should be aiming high in a bid to compete and win the career of their choice on their home soil. Mr. Tucker, a partner at accounting firm Ernst & Young said: "The census data found that there are 36,000 jobs available on the Island with only 28,000 Bermudians to fill them.

"However, the jobs that are available are highly skilled and we need to prepare young Bermudians for those positions.

"We will still need to hire foreign workers, as we will never have enough Bermudians to fill all the positions, but our aim is to make sure that more young Bermudians have a chance."

He said Bermuda was unlike other countries, where if you could not find a job in your area, you could go to another town and work somewhere else. He added: "Bermuda is locked in and people need the skills to get jobs here - there is no where else for them to go."

The Bermuda Careers Centre is affiliated with the Employers Council, the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Bermuda Insurance Institute.

It is bringing together a database of different careers, with their job descriptions and the qualifications needed for people who wish to pursue them, and making them available on a website. He said that when graduates returned from university, they needed to understand that if they did not have the right attitude, just being Bermudian did not guarantee them employment.

"In this global market, companies can opt to hire the best people from all over the world, not just form here on the Island," said Mr. Tucker. "Students not only need the best qualifications, they also need a good attitude and a great work ethic."

The Bermuda Careers Centre has three main objectives; one of the most important is to make sure that every school has a career guidance counsellor.

Mr. Tucker explained: "In the past, schools had a guidance counsellor who mainly dealt with the students social and emotional difficulties. But they could not or did not have enough time to spend dealing with the child's future or career prospects.

"There are now career guidance counsellors in every school, beginning at the primary levels up to high school, because the earlier you get a child thinking of what they want to achieve, the better. Our aim is not to be educationally elitist; we are not just looking for the kids who want to attend Harvard or Yale.

"There is not only a shortage of 70 actuaries on the Island, there is also a lack of butchers and panel beaters. Bermudians can fill these positions as well. We need to get out and make students aware of career opportunities."

The centre, which officially opened last April, is being sponsored in a joint operation by both the business sectors and the Department of Education, and costs around $225,000 to run each year. The centre currently has one employee, executive director Derek Smith, and students themselves are helping to build and keep the website updated.

The Bermuda Careers Centre, located on Church Street, also plays host to a Job Database, which outlines job opportunities.

Mr. Tucker said: "It lays out different scenarios, for instance, if you wanted to become a butcher, but you dropped out of high school with no career prospects where do you go to get the help you need. The site also features real life stories, showing that success is not always in a straight line."

He told Rotarians there were around 600 students who finished high school each year, but about 150 to 175 did not graduate with a leaving certificate. He added: "We have to find employment for them as well, as, if not, it will cause social instability. Despite what the papers say, most of our young people are great."

And he said after the events of September 11, Bermuda learned the importance of human capital, as this is all the Island has. "Apart from the emotional loss of 9/11, new offices were set up, but the hardest part was replacing the employee who had an MBA and 14 years experience. In Bermuda we need a ready workforce to help sustain this economic miracle of ours," he said.