Youths, business leaders urge Govt to expand job opportunities

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

As the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to un­veil its 2027 Bud­get to­day, un­em­ployed youths, en­tre­pre­neurs and trade union­ists are call­ing for more im­me­di­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties to earn a liv­ing, gain work ex­pe­ri­ence and build skills, even as the coun­try pur­sues eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion through aqua­cul­ture, agro-pro­cess­ing and da­ta cen­tres.

With young peo­ple strug­gling to break in­to the work­force, job cre­ation is emerg­ing as a key con­cern, with calls for em­ploy­ment pro­grammes and in­vest­ment in sec­tors be­yond the tra­di­tion­al en­er­gy in­dus­try.

For un­em­ployed ma­son and trades­man Dean Charles, get­ting work is ex­haust­ing.

“There aren’t many op­por­tu­ni­ties,” he said, not even for young peo­ple do­ing a trade.

Ravi Ker­na­ham of San Fer­nan­do said peo­ple are do­ing what­ev­er they can to sur­vive.

“Peo­ple have fam­i­lies to mind, so they are sell­ing food, plant­i­ng crops, do­ing land­scap­ing, cre­at­ing lo­cal con­tent and work­ing as taxi and PH dri­vers be­cause things are re­al­ly hard,” he said.

One San Fer­nan­do youth said he sent out over 30 job ap­pli­ca­tions over the past year and at­tend­ed sev­er­al re­cruit­ment dri­ves, but de­spite hav­ing eight CSEC sub­jects, he has not been hired.

His broth­er, who has six CSEC sub­jects, said he too was dis­ap­point­ed as, de­spite be­ing strong, hard­work­ing, hon­est and will­ing to work, he too has not been hired.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh said cre­at­ing jobs will be dif­fi­cult giv­en the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion and con­tin­ued de­pen­dence on en­er­gy ex­ports.

Singh, how­ev­er, said there are op­por­tu­ni­ties out­side the tra­di­tion­al en­er­gy sec­tor, in­clud­ing eco­tourism and the de­vel­op­ment of the San Fer­nan­do wa­ter­front.

Singh said South Trinidad could at­tract yachts and cruise ships, ex­pand its re­tail sec­tor and re­vive its fish­ing and fish-pro­cess­ing in­dus­tries.

He said the coun­try once ex­port­ed fish and shrimp from the Gulf of Paria and could restart fish pro­cess­ing to cre­ate em­ploy­ment and busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“We have a huge off­shore field of avail­able fish re­sources that can be utilised im­me­di­ate­ly by the push from the Gov­ern­ment, en­cour­ag­ing those in the pri­vate sec­tor to get en­gaged in this process of fish pro­cess­ing,” Singh said.

He al­so point­ed to the un­der­utilised Moru­ga agro-pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ty as a po­ten­tial source of eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty while the en­er­gy sec­tor waits for new de­vel­op­ments.

Singh said eco­tourism could cre­ate jobs while giv­ing small busi­ness­es and en­tre­pre­neurs op­por­tu­ni­ties to earn.

How­ev­er, Con­tract and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union rep­re­sen­ta­tive Er­mine De Bique said im­me­di­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties are al­so need­ed for school leavers and ter­tiary grad­u­ates who have qual­i­fi­ca­tions but lit­tle or no work ex­pe­ri­ence.

She sug­gest­ed short-term em­ploy­ment pro­grammes to give young peo­ple the ex­pe­ri­ence em­ploy­ers de­mand.

“These peo­ple are com­ing out of UWI, they are com­ing out of sixth form, fifth form, with their qual­i­fi­ca­tions, and there are no jobs. And most times peo­ple are ask­ing for ex­pe­ri­ence,” De Bique said.

She al­so sug­gest­ed ex­pand­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of ex­ist­ing mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions to cre­ate more jobs and help them deal with their work­loads.

De Bique said em­ploy­ment pro­grammes sim­i­lar to the for­mer Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) could al­so pro­vide jobs, pro­vid­ed safe­guards are put in place to pre­vent cor­rup­tion.

Busi­ness­man Ra­bindra Per­sad said pro­grammes are need­ed for peo­ple who may not have the aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions re­quired for many jobs.

“We have to give them some hope,” Per­sad said.

He al­so called for more op­por­tu­ni­ties in tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al ar­eas, in­fra­struc­ture, health­care and teach­ing.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the South­west Taxi Dri­vers As­so­ci­a­tion Ronald Rooplal said tourism should be ex­pand­ed, but not­ed there must be bet­ter roads.

Taxi dri­ver Adam Fer­min said youths want greater use of in­sti­tu­tions to pro­vide skills train­ing linked di­rect­ly to job place­ment.

“We can­not have peo­ple in train­ing, and af­ter be­com­ing qual­i­fied, they can­not get jobs,” he said.