Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Trinidad and To­ba­go is fac­ing the high­est un­em­ploy­ment rate in re­cent years, with an in­creas­ing num­ber of peo­ple find­ing it dif­fi­cult to land sta­ble jobs.

This is ac­cord­ing to econ­o­mists and in­ter­views con­duct­ed by the Sun­day Guardian.

Ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice’s Labour Force Sur­vey, the pe­ri­od 2021 to 2022 rep­re­sent­ed the high­est re­port­ed per­cent­age of un­em­ployed peo­ple in the labour force as com­pared to sur­vey re­sults dat­ing back to the pe­ri­od 2013-2014.

A sur­vey for the pe­ri­od 2021 to 2022 re­port­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5.24 per cent of the labour force was un­em­ployed. The sec­ond high­est fig­ure (com­pared to the pe­ri­od from 2013 to 2014) was the pe­ri­od from 2019 to 2020 which record­ed a 4.95 per cent un­em­ploy­ment rate.

Job seek­ers from across the coun­try said that the labour mar­ket feels hope­less, with many peo­ple who have de­grees forced to take up jobs that they are overqual­i­fied for–at fast food restau­rants or se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies–just to make ends meet.

They said while the sit­u­a­tion was dif­fi­cult be­fore the pan­dem­ic, it has be­come near im­pos­si­ble af­ter it.

“It’s hor­ri­ble. I’ve been send­ing re­sumes out since I left UWI be­cause work­ing at (names fast food restau­rant) is not some­where I want to be be­cause of all the dra­ma and the way cus­tomers treat you. And so far, no luck for me.

“I’ve been con­sid­er­ing go­ing back to school to study nurs­ing this time, but I’m so un­sure of what to do again,” a 25-year-old, Vi­su­al Arts bach­e­lor's de­gree hold­er lament­ed.

Many re­cent uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ates from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), as well as The Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of Trinidad and To­ba­go (COSTATT), com­plained that their job search­es have left them dis­en­chant­ed and de­pressed.

“I am a mom to a three-year-old and I am now re­spon­si­ble for some­one oth­er than my­self. I have no choice but to en­sure I pro­vide. And with job hunt­ing and op­por­tu­ni­ties be­ing dif­fi­cult, it def­i­nite­ly af­fects one’s men­tal health,” said 25-year-old Re­hana Ali, who grad­u­at­ed from UWI last year with first-class ho­n­ours in Man­age­ment Stud­ies.

Unemployment graph produced by economist Dr Marlene Attz.

Re­cent grad­u­ates said de­spite send­ing out as many as 50 job ap­pli­ca­tions a month, they do not re­ceive replies from most com­pa­nies, and when they do, they ei­ther fail to go past the in­ter­view stage or are be­ing of­fered low wages for jobs that seek to ex­ploit them.

More ex­pe­ri­enced job seek­ers said af­ter be­ing re­trenched or leav­ing their jobs be­cause of poor work­ing con­di­tions in re­cent years, they have found it im­mense­ly dif­fi­cult to find sta­ble em­ploy­ment.

“My last job was in 2020. I start­ed in Oc­to­ber 2019 and in Feb­ru­ary 2020, I had to have emer­gency surgery and ex­tend­ed sick leave, but I was then ter­mi­nat­ed be­cause I was not per­ma­nent. It’s been a strug­gle to find some­thing ever since. I try my best with my side jobs but it is a fight. I’m still clear­ing off the debt in­curred from COVID. This coun­try feels hope­less,” DM, a re­cep­tion­ist with more than 15 years of ad­min­is­tra­tion and ac­count­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, said.

“The last job I had was at a school feed­ing kitchen in Ch­agua­nas. I be­came un­em­ployed when the school closed in the first week of Ju­ly. I have been try­ing to get a job but all I am get­ting is an in­ter­view and a promise to be called, but no call­back.

“It’s very dif­fi­cult be­cause I have a ten-year-old son and my­self to feed. I have moved in with a friend be­cause I can’t pay rent,” 35-year-old Chris­sy said.

The Labour Min­istry's fig­ures

In Jan­u­ary, the Sun­day Guardian sent a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest to the Min­istry of Labour, seek­ing un­em­ploy­ment and re­trench­ment fig­ures from 2020 to 2022.

The re­quest was grant­ed with­in a month.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Labour’s fig­ures, as of the third quar­ter of 2022, there were 32,200 un­em­ployed peo­ple in the coun­try.

Of that fig­ure, 15,700 were men, while 16,500 were women.

Sec­tors dom­i­nat­ed by women heav­i­ly im­pact­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic

Dr Marlene Attz, economist.

Econ­o­mist: Sec­tors dom­i­nat­ed by women heav­i­ly im­pact­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic

Ac­cord­ing to econ­o­mist and UWI lec­tur­er Dr Mar­lene Attzs, the coun­try has not dis­en­tan­gled all the im­pacts of COVID-19.

She be­lieved that there is a lot of un­em­ploy­ment that has emerged and the coun­try does not seem to have a han­dle on it, in terms of de­tails.

The econ­o­mist said, with­out dis­count­ing the fact that men al­so be­came un­em­ployed, sec­tors that are dom­i­nat­ed by women, such as the ser­vices sec­tor, were heav­i­ly im­pact­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“There is a gen­dered im­pact to the un­em­ploy­ment that we are see­ing in Trinidad and there could be all kinds of domi­no ef­fects com­ing out of that as well…There are re­al­ly a num­ber of com­plex is­sues com­ing to­geth­er to cre­ate a com­plex sit­u­a­tion.

“You have cas­es where women are sin­gle par­ents or men who are sin­gle par­ents, there are domi­no im­pacts. So you have lost your job and then your abil­i­ty to look af­ter your fam­i­ly as the case might be. Chil­dren were on­line for school. There are a num­ber of is­sues com­ing to­geth­er that were ex­ac­er­bat­ed as seen in the em­ploy­ment da­ta, but re­al­ly there are larg­er is­sues and larg­er fall­outs that might have tak­en place as a re­sult of the un­em­ploy­ment,” Dr Attzs said.

The UWI lec­tur­er said the un­em­ploy­ment/em­ploy­ment dy­nam­ic has dif­fer­ent lay­ers to it, with some peo­ple los­ing jobs, while oth­ers are forced to work few­er hours as pro­pri­etors seek to bal­ance keep­ing their busi­ness­es afloat, keep­ing peo­ple em­ployed and man­ag­ing their dol­lars.

Dr Daren Conrad, economist

ANISTO ALVES

Econ­o­mist: The fig­ure is an un­der­state­ment of the ac­tu­al re­al­i­ty

Con­cern­ing re­trench­ment no­tices, the Min­istry of Labour re­ceived 5,143 no­tices be­tween Jan­u­ary 2020 and De­cem­ber 2022.

The most re­trench­ment no­tices re­ceived dur­ing that pe­ri­od came in 2020, with 2,775 no­tices that year.

How­ev­er, econ­o­mist and UWI lec­tur­er Dr Daren Con­rad be­lieved those fig­ures are not re­flec­tive of the re­al­i­ties of the labour mar­ket.

He be­lieved that the un­em­ploy­ment rate is way high­er than in re­cent years.

“Re­mem­ber, in terms of re­port­ing for busi­ness­es, busi­ness­es are not nec­es­sar­i­ly re­quired to re­port based on the size of their op­er­a­tion. So busi­ness­es for five or few­er (re­trench­ments) will not re­port. So, to me, that is an un­der­state­ment of what the ac­tu­al re­al­i­ty is. So five per­sons or less, they are not re­quired to re­port–ter­mi­na­tions and re­trench­ments and that sort of thing. So off the bat that is a gross un­der­state­ment of what the re­al­i­ty is,” the in­de­pen­dent con­sul­tant for the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank said.

Senior economist Vaalmikki Arjoon

Vaalmikki Arjoon

Econ­o­mist: The grey or un­der­ground econ­o­my must al­so be con­sid­ered

Fi­nan­cial econ­o­mist and UWI lec­tur­er Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon said while the num­bers giv­en by the Min­istry of Labour are quite healthy on the sur­face, the par­al­lel econ­o­my must be con­sid­ered when look­ing at the true re­al­i­ty of the labour mar­ket.

“What you have to con­sid­er is the grey econ­o­my or the un­der­ground econ­o­my–the num­ber of com­pa­nies that we have here that are un­reg­is­tered and they hire peo­ple who are not on the books. So they pay them a week­ly or month­ly salary–what­ev­er the case may be, but they are not pay­ing any NIS or any tax­es. There­fore, they are not count­ed as part of your labour force.

“So, ob­vi­ous­ly dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, sev­er­al of these com­pa­nies had to shut down. Let’s put it this way if I have a small com­pa­ny and I have ten em­ploy­ees, and those em­ploy­ees are not reg­is­tered, and I close down my com­pa­ny and tell them, ‘hard luck fel­las, you have to find some­thing else,’ they are not be­ing ac­count­ed for. So that fig­ure could very well be larg­er than that five per cent (un­em­ploy­ment),” Dr Ar­joon said.

The fi­nance lec­tur­er said when so many peo­ple are un­ac­count­ed for in the labour mar­ket, it has an im­pact on the com­pa­ny’s tax col­lec­tion regime, as it leads to a huge leak­age of tax­es.

Like Dr Con­rad, he said the un­em­ploy­ment and re­trench­ment fig­ures do not take in­to ac­count com­pa­nies that re­trench or let go of five em­ploy­ees or less, as they are not re­quired to no­ti­fy the au­thor­i­ties.

“So let’s say you have 1,000 small com­pa­nies, SMEs, be­cause we know some small com­pa­nies had no choice but to let go sev­er­al of their em­ploy­ees over the last cou­ple of years–if they let go four peo­ple, that’s four by 1,000 and that’s 4,000 peo­ple let go that are not ac­count­ed for un­der those no­tices,” he said.

The job­less speak out

Mandie Figaro, unemployed for two years.

Mandie Fi­garo, el­der­ly care­giv­er, un­em­ployed since 2021:

“I have had one week of work in the last year. There are some days I would have one meal or some­times none for the day.”

Chantelle, moth­er of two, un­em­ployed since March 2020:

“Some days I sit my­self down and cry, then some­times, I’ll pull my­self to­geth­er and say, I’ll get through this. The most hurt­ful thing is when my three-year-old asks me for some­thing and I have to ex­plain that I don’t have mon­ey. When I apol­o­gise, she says don’t wor­ry, mom­my, when I get big, I’ll buy you every­thing.”

Emi­ly Mo­hammed, spe­cial needs and pri­ma­ry school teacher, un­em­ployed since 2021:

“I have ap­plied for a lot of jobs, ba­si­cal­ly any­thing that I can do–cook­ing, ad­min­is­tra­tion, mer­chan­dis­ing, teach­ing, any­thing, and no call back be­cause I am ap­par­ent­ly too qual­i­fied in an­oth­er field. I re­cent­ly worked for a Chi­nese restau­rant do­ing jan­i­to­r­i­al work and kitchen prep.”

"The job market is a sick joke," says UWI graduate La Toya Nicholls.

La Toya Nicholls, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Lin­guis­tics and Lit­er­a­ture:

“The job mar­ket is dark hu­mour in it­self I tell you; a sick joke. It’s what con­vinced me that nepo­tism was the on­ly way one could sur­vive out here. The chaos of it re­al­ly took a toll on my men­tal health. There were days I just stayed home and couldn’t tell the dif­fer­ence be­tween night and day…My heart bleeds for my fel­low Mil­len­ni­al and Gen Zs.”

Nneka Mc­Neil Greene, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Bi­ol­o­gy with Bio­med­ical Em­pha­sis, un­em­ployed since 2019:

“Even fast food places not hir­ing me be­cause I am overqual­i­fied, like if you can eat your de­gree. It’s been re­al­ly hard. In 2021, my dad died in Jan­u­ary and my house burnt down in Feb­ru­ary, less than a month af­ter his death.”

UWI graduate Joanna Candice, unemployed since 2020.

Joan­na Can­dice, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health & Safe­ty, un­em­ployed since 2020:

“Last job was at the Labour Min­istry. It was a three-month con­tract that end­ed. I’ve been de­pressed al­most every day. Some days I don’t even get off my bed, but I force my­self.”

Kedisha Ohn, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Man­age­ment Stud­ies, grad­u­at­ed from UWI in 2022:

“Imag­ine spend­ing six years in to­tal to ob­tain a de­gree from an ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion for bet­ter ca­reer op­por­tu­ni­ties, on­ly to be slammed left, right and cen­tre with un­em­ploy­ment. These peo­ple view you as lazy or lack­ing am­bi­tion when re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, your fi­nances are lim­it­ed by the lack of job avail­abil­i­ty rather than lazi­ness.”

Ricky Khan, welder/fab­ri­ca­tor, un­em­ployed since 2019:

“I was work­ing with a farm but they closed down. We have three kids to care for. Two in high school and one in pri­ma­ry school. My big child is writ­ing CXC next year and I can­not even pur­chase the text­books that she needs. Even the un­em­ploy­ment re­lief pro­gramme is hard to get in­to.”

Ju­dah Williams, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Lit­er­a­ture, grad­u­at­ed from UWI in 2021:

“It feels hope­less and dis­heart­en­ing. I have been do­ing oth­er jobs that do not re­quire my qual­i­fi­ca­tions, but they al­so pay re­al­ly low–dri­ver, of­fice as­sis­tant, se­cu­ri­ty, con­struc­tion and ware­house at­ten­dant. I think there needs to be a high­er will­ing­ness of the pub­lic sec­tor to em­ploy grad­u­ates who do not have ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Tr­ish grad­u­at­ed from UWI in 2020:

“No feed­back on ap­pli­ca­tions with­in my field, even though I’ve ap­plied count­less times with­in or­gan­i­sa­tions. Def­i­nite­ly feels like you need to have links with­in gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions.”

"It's overwhelming and discouraging," says UWI graduate Kadisha Thomas.

Kadisha Thomas grad­u­at­ed from UWI in 2022:

“Some­times it gets over­whelm­ing and dis­cour­ag­ing. If the state of the econ­o­my does not im­prove, I think the coun­try would have a high per­cent­age of brain drain.”

Kami­ni Ma­habir, un­em­ployed since 2020:

“I used to work at the air­port un­til COVID hap­pened and in March 2020, I was sent home. Since then, it’s been very dif­fi­cult. I would send re­sumes out. How­ev­er, it seems like I have to know some­one to get a job.”

Krys­tal, 28, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Jour­nal­ism/Pub­lic Re­la­tions:

“The on­ly jobs that have been re­spond­ing are fast food out­lets–overqual­i­fied and min­i­mal pay. I feel like I’ve wast­ed my time and mon­ey on do­ing two as­so­ciate de­grees and one bach­e­lor's de­gree. It was a chal­lenge to get a job pre-COVID and COVID just made it ex­tra hard now.”

An­drew Si­mon, an elec­tri­cian with 15 years of ex­pe­ri­ence, un­em­ployed since 2019:

“I’m qual­i­fied in my field with ex­pe­ri­ence, but it’s all about who knows you. I don’t mind be­ing self-em­ployed but if the econ­o­my is not do­ing well, peo­ple will not spend their mon­ey to do projects.”

Re­hana Ali, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Man­age­ment Stud­ies, grad­u­at­ed from UWI in 2022:

“It’s dis­heart­en­ing that each grad­u­at­ing year our coun­try is faced with hun­dreds, if not thou­sands of un­em­ployed grad­u­ates. So many of us opt­ed to pur­sue ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in the hopes of a bet­ter life than our par­ents. And now that we’ve done that, the job fields are over­sat­u­rat­ed and there are not enough jobs for us.”

Dian­dra, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Crim­i­nol­o­gy and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice, grad­u­at­ed from UWI in 2021:

“I ap­ply for jobs that ask for just CXC sub­jects. I have ex­pe­ri­ence and it’s still very hard. I don’t see things im­prov­ing lo­cal­ly in the fore­see­able fu­ture, so I’m pre­pared to con­sid­er oth­er op­tions.”

Gen­na, ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant, un­em­ployed since March 2022:

“I left my job last year due to ver­bal abuse and I have not been able to re­gain steady em­ploy­ment. Been to a lot of in­ter­views where em­ploy­ers ba­si­cal­ly want your whole life to be their work. It has been very de­press­ing be­cause the bills pile up and you can’t even take care of your per­son­al well-be­ing.”

Im­manuel, Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, un­em­ployed since Oc­to­ber 2021:

“I’ve ap­plied lit­er­al­ly to hun­dreds of jobs and on­ly five to sev­en of them called me back. I’ve ap­plied in per­son to some oth­er jobs not re­lat­ed to my area of ex­per­tise, like gro­cery pack­er, cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive, ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant and se­cu­ri­ty guard.”