CSO data shows 12,000 job losses from April to September 2025

Last week, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk ex­am­ined the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cruit­ment dri­ve through Em­ployTT.

Months lat­er, many who ap­plied to the Gov­ern­ment for jobs have not been called to work.

At the time of its launch, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the ini­tia­tive would pro­vide more than 20,000 job op­por­tu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go. It came at a time when thou­sands of work­ers were laid off from make-work pro­grammes such as the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme.

Both pro­grammes have now been shut down by the Gov­ern­ment.

So what’s the re­al rate of un­em­ploy­ment in T&T?

Does the pub­licly avail­able da­ta match up to the Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy on its make-work pro­grammes?

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

Since los­ing her CEPEP job last June, East­lyn Bo­mant has joined the long list of un­em­ployed in­di­vid­u­als in the coun­try.

In the last eight months, the 60-year-old woman has knocked on the doors of more than two dozen busi­ness­es in search of work but has come up emp­ty-hand­ed.

Bo­mant knows her age is stacked against her, and she’s grow­ing frus­trat­ed.

Last Oc­to­ber, Bo­mant and one of her daugh­ters, who was al­so fired from CEPEP, ap­plied at a reg­is­tra­tion hub for the Gov­ern­ment’s Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve.

This ini­tia­tive would have pro­vid­ed more than 20,000 job op­por­tu­ni­ties across T&T.

At the end of the Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve, a to­tal of 110,000 peo­ple ap­plied on­line or in per­son.

Four months lat­er, Bo­mant and her daugh­ter have not been called to work.

Of the 30,000 peo­ple who ap­plied for jobs from the Gov­ern­ment through Em­ployTT, on­ly 1,801 have been hired by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.

For three years, Bo­mant worked as a CEPEP labour­er in Cap-de-Ville.

“I still cry to this day. It has been ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult man­ag­ing with­out a job,” she ad­mit­ted, her voice choked with emo­tion.

“It’s not a good feel­ing. Re­mem­ber, they take us out of our jobs and had noth­ing in place for us. This Gov­ern­ment ain’t nice. They just crushed peo­ple from their jobs just so...and you ain’t put noth­ing in place for no­body. They ain’t care at all, es­pe­cial­ly for the poor peo­ple,” she told the Sun­day Guardian last week.

Bo­mant did not pay her 750 NIS con­tri­bu­tions to re­ceive a month­ly Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIS) ben­e­fit at age 60.

She would have to wait un­til she turns 65 to col­lect a month­ly pen­sion from the State.

Be­tween April and Sep­tem­ber of 2025, the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) re­port­ed 12,000 job loss­es in the coun­try.

That’s the lat­est da­ta on the coun­try’s un­em­ploy­ment rate that’s avail­able ac­cord­ing to the CSO for the sec­ond and third quar­ters (April to June and Ju­ly to Sep­tem­ber) of 2025.

These fig­ures, round­ed to the near­est hun­dred by CSO and pub­lished on its web­site, re­flect­ed the coun­try’s un­em­ploy­ment rate over three quar­ters of 2025, fol­low­ing the fir­ing of thou­sands of work­ers be­tween May and Sep­tem­ber last year.

Among those fired were CEPEP, URP, Na­tion­al Re­for­esta­tion and Wa­ter­shed Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Pro­gramme (NR­WRP), Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and work­ers from two Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties.

The mass ter­mi­na­tions oc­curred at a time when T&T’s econ­o­my was still re­cov­er­ing from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing pe­ri­ods of stag­na­tion and de­cline.

To ar­rive at that fig­ure, the CSO cat­e­gorised three ar­eas as “to­tal un­em­ploy­ment, per­sons with­out jobs and seek­ing work and oth­er un­em­ployed”.

In the first quar­ter (Jan­u­ary to March), 28,900 were iden­ti­fied as un­em­ployed. By the sec­ond quar­ter, it stood at 22,600. By the third quar­ter, the num­ber of un­em­ployed peo­ple in­creased to 28,600. A rise of 6,000 peo­ple los­ing their jobs or 26.5 per cent more peo­ple be­com­ing un­em­ployed be­tween the sec­ond and third quar­ters.

For “per­sons with­out jobs and seek­ing work”, CSO’s da­ta showed there were 18,000 in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2025, and by the third quar­ter, the num­ber of peo­ple in this cat­e­go­ry jumped to 22,100- a 22.8 per cent in­crease or 4,100 peo­ple.

Un­der the sub­head­ing “oth­er un­em­ployed,” da­ta showed 4,700 peo­ple fell in­to this brack­et in the sec­ond quar­ter, with a growth of 6,600 peo­ple in this cat­e­go­ry, which rep­re­sent­ed a 40 per cent in­crease or 1,900 more “oth­er un­em­ployed” in­di­vid­u­als.

A tal­ly of the three “un­em­ployed” cat­e­gories be­tween April and Sep­tem­ber last year showed 12,000 more peo­ple with­out work.

1993-19.8%

1994-18.4%

1995-17.2%

1996-16.3 %

1997-15 %

1998-14.2 %

1999-13.2 %

2000-12.2%

2001-10.8%

2002-10.4%

2003-10.5%

2004-8.4%

2005-8 %

2006-6.2 %

2007-5.6%

2008-4.6%

2009-5.3%

2010-5.9%

2011-5.1%

2012-5.0%

2013-3.7%

2014-3.3%

2015-3.4%

2016-4.0%

2017-4.8%

2018-3.9%

2019-4.3%

2020- 5.6%

2021- 5.4%

2022- 4.9%

2023- 4.0%

2024- 5.0%

2025- First quar­ter-4.9%

Sec­ond quar­ter-3.8%

Third quar­ter-4.8 %

Da­ta showed that the to­tal labour force in the first, sec­ond and third quar­ters of 2025 was 587,700, 596,900 and 590,600, re­spec­tive­ly.

In the last quar­ter of 2025, CSO re­port­ed there were 324,700 males and 265,900 fe­males work­ing in the labour force.

For this same pe­ri­od, there were 13,100 males and 15,500 un­em­ployed fe­males.

Fig­ures al­so showed that 311,600 males and 250,300 fe­males had jobs as of last Sep­tem­ber.

The un­em­ploy­ment rate was 4.9 per cent in the first quar­ter of 2025 when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was still in of­fice.

When the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress was elect­ed in­to of­fice, the un­em­ploy­ment rate dipped to 3.8 per cent in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2025 and climbed to 4.8 per cent in the third.

The labour force par­tic­i­pa­tion rate, which stood at 54.3 per cent in the first quar­ter of 2025, moved to 55.1 per cent in the sec­ond quar­ter and dropped to 54.6 per cent in the third quar­ter.

CSO al­so con­duct­ed a year-on-year com­par­i­son of quar­ter three in 2024 and quar­ter three in 2025, which “re­vealed that the av­er­age num­ber of per­sons with­out jobs and seek­ing work in­creased by 16.9 per cent.”

In the third quar­ter of 2024, there were 18,900 peo­ple with­out jobs and look­ing for work.

In the third quar­ter of 2025, the da­ta showed 22,100 in­di­vid­u­als had no work, an in­crease of 3,200 un­em­ployed.

Re­gard­ing the num­ber of peo­ple with jobs, CSO’s fig­ures showed 558,900 were gain­ful­ly em­ployed be­tween Jan­u­ary and March last year.

“In quar­ter three, 2025, the es­ti­mat­ed av­er­age num­ber of per­sons with jobs for all sec­tors was 561,900. Com­pared to the sec­ond quar­ter of 2025 (574,100), the over­all av­er­age em­ploy­ment across all in­dus­tries de­creased by 2.1 per cent,” CSO stat­ed.

The 2.1 per cent rep­re­sents 12,200 peo­ple los­ing their jobs.

The in­dus­tries were list­ed as con­struc­tion, pe­tro­le­um and gas, agri­cul­ture, forestry, hunt­ing and fish­ing, whole­sale and re­tail trade, restau­rants and ho­tels, trans­port, stor­age and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter, com­mu­ni­ty, so­cial and per­son­al ser­vices, fi­nanc­ing, in­sur­ance, re­al es­tate and busi­ness ser­vices, oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ing and min­ing and quar­ry­ing.

De­vel­op­ment econ­o­mist Dr Ralph Hen­ry said that find­ing jobs has been dif­fi­cult be­cause “the coun­try does not have sec­tors that are boom­ing.”

He said sec­tors must be cre­at­ed to ab­sorb the job loss­es.

“You have to cre­ate the in­sti­tu­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment that peo­ple would want to in­vest and de­vel­op ca­pac­i­ty in sec­tors... and that will lead to the cre­ation of jobs.”

How­ev­er, he said the Gov­ern­ment does not have the re­sources to do that.

“Our econ­o­my is still in need of di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, where you have a large num­ber of jobs in pro­duc­tive ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Hen­ry point­ed out that a de­cline in em­ploy­ment can in­crease pover­ty and af­fect the econ­o­my.

He said the CSO’s un­em­ploy­ment fig­ures would not re­flect every­one who lost their job, stat­ing that some peo­ple would stop look­ing for work.

“And there­fore, you could have a re­duc­tion in the work­force par­tic­i­pa­tion rate. So they would not be classed as un­em­ployed but hav­ing with­drawn from the work­force.”

He said sev­er­al fac­tors can con­tribute to a de­cline in the labour par­tic­i­pa­tion rate.

Two rea­sons were that peo­ple get frus­trat­ed find­ing work, and oth­ers pre­fer to pur­sue their ed­u­ca­tion.

Be­tween 1991 and 2024, the high­est par­tic­i­pa­tion rate record­ed was 63.9 per cent in 2006.

The low­est was in 2021 with 54.8 per cent.

Be­fore the April 28, 2025, Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Hen­ry said the coun­try was drift­ing along un­der the PNM, af­ter the COVID-19 cri­sis.

“Af­ter that, the econ­o­my start­ed to re­cov­er in some ar­eas. They un­der­stood how to man­age with se­vere lim­i­ta­tions. So they were kind of mak­ing do and al­low­ing the pop­u­la­tion to feel things would im­prove at some stage.”

He said the PNM’s great­est chal­lenge was gen­er­at­ing rev­enue from oil and gas.

Con­verse­ly, he said, the UNC was yet to mas­ter the art of op­er­at­ing with a shrunk­en bud­get.

“Clear­ly, they have prob­lems to ad­dress. The gov­ern­ment has to find a way to get the pop­u­la­tion on board, recog­nis­ing that we face dif­fi­cult times.”

Hen­ry said the Gov­ern­ment has to cre­ate ways to stim­u­late em­ploy­ment.

“Even if it might mean in­creas­ing the debt or bor­row­ing mon­ey to cre­ate jobs.”

While this may not be the best rec­om­men­da­tion, Hen­ry said it was all about cre­at­ing ca­pac­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty.

When asked to re­spond to the sta­tis­tics ob­tained by the Sun­day Guardian about the coun­try’s un­em­ploy­ment fig­ures, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said he did not get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­view the da­ta.

“I have done no analy­sis on it at all, so I re­al­ly would not want to com­ment on it.”

How­ev­er, for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning said the Op­po­si­tion ex­pect­ed the CSO fig­ures, giv­en that so many work­ers from URP, CEPEP and Re­for­esta­tion were put on the bread­line in the last few months.

He said many of the ter­mi­nat­ed peo­ple were sin­gle moth­ers and bread­win­ners.

“What they (Gov­ern­ment) failed to con­sid­er is that there were some peo­ple who were un­em­ploy­able or would have great dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing em­ploy­ment else­where. So it made things in­cred­i­bly dif­fi­cult.”

The San Fer­nan­do East MP ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of tax­ing the econ­o­my in­to a re­ces­sion and of wag­ing a war against the poor with their poli­cies.

“They have been putting a lot of small busi­ness­es out of op­er­a­tion.”

Even the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is now feel­ing the pinch, he said.

Man­ning said the Op­po­si­tion was not sur­prised by the out­come.

“It’s re­al­ly a self-in­flict­ed re­ces­sion be­cause of a gov­ern­ment that sim­ply has no idea how to man­age this econ­o­my.

2010-62.1%

2011-61.3%

2012-61.9%

2013-61.4%

2014-61.9%

2015-60.6%

2016-59.7%

2017-59.2%

2018-59.1%

2019-57.3%

2020-55.9%

2021-54.8%

2022-55.0%

2023-55.6%

2024-55.1%

2025-54.3%

Be­fore the pan­dem­ic, sin­gle par­ent Lynn Bridge­wa­ter held down two jobs.

For 11 years, she worked the 2 pm to 11 pm shift at a fast-food restau­rant in South Trinidad.

From 6 am to 11 am, Bridge­wa­ter served as a labour­er with the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) in Point Fortin to put food on the ta­ble for her four chil­dren.

Bridge­wa­ter bare­ly got any sleep to earn be­tween $5,400 and $7,000 a month.

“The mon­ey was nice,” she said.

As the sole provider, Bridge­wa­ter al­ways bud­get­ed her salary to en­sure her chil­dren were fed, clothed and at­tend­ed school.

“I didn’t have to ask some­body to help me to do noth­ing. So I was more con­fi­dent that I could han­dle this with­out a man’s help. Most work­ers and most peo­ple up to to­day used to friend with men or have sex with men for help. But I nev­er used to go down that road.”

Af­ter the pan­dem­ic, the restau­rant gave Bridge­wa­ter an ul­ti­ma­tum: work with them or leave CEPEP.

Bridge­wa­ter chose to work with CEPEP, be­liev­ing she could build a fu­ture for her fam­i­ly.

With her $2,400 month­ly Cepep salary, Bridge­wa­ter could have bare­ly paid her $1,700 rent.

She sub­mit­ted her name for tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment at the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and was re­tained as a jan­i­tor, which paid $1,700 a fort­night.

Her new job last­ed a few weeks.

She had to go job hunt­ing again.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al weeks af­ter the April 28, 2025, Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Bridge­wa­ter, along with more than 10,000 CEPEP work­ers, was sent home by the UNC Gov­ern­ment.

Her on­ly source of sur­vival was snatched from her.

“It was shock­ing. I nev­er ex­pect­ed this to hap­pen,” she re­called, break­ing down in tears.

With no sav­ings put aside for a rainy day, Bridge­wa­ter’s world turned up­side down.

Her food sup­ply ran scarce, and bills mount­ed.

“I owed my land­lord six months’ rent. My life start­ed to crum­ble.”

Bridge­wa­ter said a war­rant was is­sued for the ar­rest of one of the chil­dren’s fa­thers, who owed $22,000 in main­te­nance.

An­oth­er, who owed $18,000 in child sup­port, could not pay due to a med­ical is­sue.

For five months, Bridge­wa­ter strug­gled as a sin­gle par­ent.

The land­la­dy even­tu­al­ly threw out Bridge­wa­ter’s be­long­ings from the apart­ment.

“I had no place to go with my kids.”

An el­der­ly man whom Bridge­wa­ter was pro­vid­ing care­giv­ing ser­vices to opened his one-bed­room home to her fam­i­ly.

A friend of­fered to keep her fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances.

The Bridge­wa­ters have been oc­cu­py­ing the man’s con­gest­ed liv­ing room.

The house is in­fest­ed with rats and roach­es.

While Bridge­wa­ter and her three younger chil­dren sleep on the floor, her teenage son, a sec­ondary school stu­dent, us­es a chair as his bed.

Last No­vem­ber, Bridge­wa­ter land­ed a job at a bak­ery mak­ing pas­tries.

Her $3,800 month­ly job pro­vid­ed some re­lief.

In Jan­u­ary, the bak­ery closed its doors be­cause of de­clin­ing busi­ness.

Again, she was thrown on the bread­line.

Bridge­wa­ter said last week her chil­dren start­ed brush­ing their teeth with salt af­ter she could not buy tooth­paste.

“I told them I used salt to brush my teeth grow­ing up, and none of my teeth fall out.”

She’s still await­ing a food card from the State.

To com­pound mat­ters, Bridge­wa­ter said the friend who stored her be­long­ings start­ed de­mand­ing sex from her.

When Bridge­wa­ter re­fused to give in to his de­mands, the man de­stroyed her ap­pli­ances and dropped them out­side the el­der­ly man’s house.

In un­der two years, Bridge­wa­ter lost four jobs, three of which were be­tween May 2025 and Jan­u­ary 2026.

Agri­cul­ture, 26,500 25,400 1,200 4.5

forestry,

hunt­ing

and fish­ing.

Pe­tro­le­um 13,900 12,800 1,200 8.6

and gas.

Con­struc­tion 68,200 62,600 5,600 8.2

Whole­sale 124,800 119,700 5,200 4.2

and re­tail trade,

restau­rants and

ho­tels.

Trans­port, 31,900 31,100 800 2.5

stor­age and

com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Fi­nanc­ing, 65,500 63,600 2,000 3.1

in­sur­ance, re­al-

es­tate and

busi­ness ser­vice.

Com­mu­ni­ty, 199,200 190,100 9,200 4.6

so­cial and per­son­al

ser­vices.

Elec­tric­i­ty and 6,200 6,200 0 0

wa­ter.

Oth­er 43,100 40,300 2,800 6.5

man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Min­ing and 1,600 1,600 0 0

quar­ry­ing.

Not stat­ed 6,600 5,600 1,000 15.2