Trinidad and Tobago cannot keep asking for experience without creating opportunities to acquire it.
By Kirk Rampersad
You need experience to get the job. You need the job to gain experience.
Between those two sentences sits a question more important than another debate about whether young people are work-ready: who is prepared to help them become ready?
The contradiction is international. In its October 2026 brief, Breaking the youth experience trap, the International Labour Organisation advocates recruitment based on demonstrated skills, supported by structured pathways into meaningful work.
This does not mean employers should abandon standards or hire indiscriminately. It means distinguishing between capabilities essential on the first day and those a capable beginner can develop through properly supervised work.
For T&T, that distinction could help turn education, ambition and potential into productive careers.
Where T&T stands
The Central Statistical Office reports that unemployment among people aged 15–24 was 12.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, compared with 5.4 per cent overall. The youth rate was therefore more than twice the national rate. It refers to young people in the labour force, not all young people.
For international comparison, the World Bank’s annual, ILO-modelled estimates put youth unemployment in 2025 at approximately 8.2 per cent in T&T, 10.8 per cent in Jamaica and 6.9 per cent in Germany. These estimates differ in period and methodology from the CSO’s quarterly figures and should not be treated as the same series.
T&T’s estimated rate is lower than Jamaica’s but higher than Germany’s. That invites learning, not complacency or a simplistic league table.
Unemployment also tells only part of the story. Globally, the ILO estimates that one in five young people was neither employed nor in education or training in 2025. This is a global figure, not an estimate for T&T
These statistics establish the importance of the transition into work. They do not prove that experience requirements alone explain unemployment. Better recruitment cannot substitute for viable businesses creating sustainable jobs.
Experience must be built
Think about what a first job should teach: meeting deadlines, responding to customers, working through disagreements, applying safety procedures and accepting responsibility when something goes wrong.
We should expect qualifications to provide foundations. We should not expect every graduate to arrive with judgement that develops through supervised practice.
Equally, experience should mean more than time served. Three years in a role does not automatically demonstrate three years of learning.
A fairer recruitment question would be: what can this applicant already demonstrate and what could they learn with appropriate support?
Employers’ concerns deserve respect. Training requires time, supervision and money. A small business cannot suspend its operations to become a training institution. The answer must therefore include shared solutions, not simply instructions to hire more beginners.
Germany offers a useful example. Its dual apprenticeship system combines paid workplace learning with vocational schooling, supervised training and recognised qualifications. Employers participate in developing skills rather than waiting for education providers to deliver a finished employee.
Germany’s Institute for Employment Research reports that 75 per cent of apprenticeship completers were retained by their training employers in 2025. That was down from 79 per cent in 2024, underlining that training cannot eliminate wider economic pressures. Nevertheless, the connection between learning and employment is substantial.
The OECD provides another benchmark: in 2025, 89 per cent of people aged 25–34 in Germany with a highest qualification at the vocational upper-secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary level were employed, compared with 83 per cent across the OECD. These figures describe that qualification group, not all young people.
The lesson is not to transplant Germany’s system wholesale. It is to make work experience a designed part of preparation, rather than a prerequisite that newcomers must somehow obtain elsewhere.
Turning opportunity into capability
T&T already has foundations to build upon. The On-the-Job Training Programme provides workplace experience, stipends, and placements lasting up to 24 months. Its existence provides employers and training institutions with an established route for supportingcareer preparation.
Alongside such programmes, businesses and industry associations could adopt a practical firstopportunity commitment: identify suitable beginner roles, provide meaningful paid work and assess progress against clearly defined skills.
Start with the vacancy notice. Where prior experience is not genuinely essential, replace blanket requirements with relevant work samples or practical assessments. A junior communications applicant could explain a campaign proposal; an administrative applicant could organise a sample schedule. Assess reasoning and execution, not merely a polished application.
Qualifications and mandatory professional requirements must remain where necessary. Skillsbased recruitment should widen fair access, not weaken safety or competence.
Then design the first 90 days. Each recruit should have a named supervisor, a short learning plan and regular feedback. By the end, both parties should know which tasks the employee can perform independently and which require further support.
Mentorship should appear in supervisors’ workloads, not depend entirely on goodwill after hours. A placement without instruction risks becoming inexpensive labour rather than professional development.
Payment matters too. We should not design entry routes that assume every family can finance months of transport, meals and unpaid work. Transparent recruitment and reasonable accommodations should help ensure that opportunity reaches beyond applicants with personal connections or financial support.
Smaller enterprises could share the burden through industry associations and partnerships with training institutions. Joint induction sessions, shared technical instruction and coordinated placements would allow participation without requiring each firm to build a separate training department.
Schools, universities and technical institutions should work with employers on assessed projects addressing genuine business problems. Students should leave with evidence of what they can do: a completed project, documented feedback and the ability to explain their decisions.
The aim is not another certificate to add to an application. It is credible evidence of capability.
A responsibility on both sides
Young people have responsibilities too. A first opportunity should be met with preparation, punctuality, curiosity and a willingness to accept correction. A qualification does not remove the need to learn from colleagues or begin with unfamiliar tasks.
But willingness to learn should be met with willingness to teach. Employers should explain expectations, provide safe working conditions and give honest feedback rather than assume beginners will understand unwritten rules.
Families and communities can reinforce this partnership by valuing technical careers, practical competence and steady development alongside academic achievement and professional titles.
We should also measure what happens after placement. How many participants complete their training? Which skills can they demonstrate? How many secure sustained employment within six months and remain employed a year later?
A shared scorecard could track these outcomes without identifying individuals, helping employers and institutions improve what they offer.
As businesses consider automating routine tasks, they should also ask how newcomers will acquire the judgement those tasks once helped develop. Efficiency should not leave the next generation without a place to begin.
Government has an enabling role, but employers, educators, professional associations, families and young people all have responsibilities that cannot simply be delegated.
We do not need to choose between maintaining standards and offering opportunity. Properly designed first jobs can do both.
Every experienced professional was once a beginner. Someone provided instruction, corrected a mistake or trusted them with a responsibility they had not previously carried.
T&T’s future will depend partly on how many of us are willing to do the same.The next time we ask a young person, “Where is your experience?”, we should also ask ourselves: “What opportunity are we prepared to provide?”
Kirk Rampersad can be contacted via email: kirkram@hotmail.com or connect on linkedin.com/in/kirk-rampersad-mba-5ab579268
