Earlier this 12 months, I met a younger graduate who had spent your entire summer season looking for a job that matched her schooling—with out success. Because the weeks handed and her choices narrowed, she utilized to a neighborhood meat store, hoping to seek out some type of employment. However even there, she was turned away – she was “overqualified” to pack rooster legs.
Her story shouldn’t be distinctive. Throughout a number of Caribbean international locations, younger persons are discovering that educational {qualifications}, whereas important, don’t at all times open the doorways they anticipated. Companies, in flip, report issue filling positions, not due to a scarcity of candidates, however as a result of many job seekers merely don’t have the technical expertise or expertise required. This disconnect – between the provision and demand of expertise – is likely one of the most persistent progress constraints within the area.
In Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, for instance, companies constantly rank the scarcity of a talented workforce among the many prime two obstacles to doing enterprise. The affect of this scarcity is putting: in 2020, 50% of all job vacancies in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines requiring expert staff remained unfilled because of a scarcity of certified candidates. In neighboring Saint Lucia, 40% of employers reported that the talents and schooling of staff hindered the nation’s competitiveness. In the meantime, the issue extends past companies—61% of youth report difficulties discovering jobs or incomes a dwelling, actually because their educational {qualifications} don’t align with the calls for of the labor market.
The ramifications are wide-ranging. Youth unemployment in Grenada and Saint Lucia exceeds 40%, among the many highest within the Jap Caribbean. For individuals who do discover work, many are employed in roles for which they’re underqualified—57% of staff in Saint Lucia lacked the required {qualifications} for his or her roles in 2019—or that fail to totally make the most of their schooling and expertise. Whereas such employment could supply earnings, it might additionally result in mismatches between staff’ capabilities and job calls for, leaving many younger individuals annoyed and limiting the potential of companies to function at full productiveness.
These challenges mirror deeper structural points, together with insufficient high quality of primary schooling and inadequate collaboration between post-secondary establishments and the personal sector. Put up-secondary establishments typically function in isolation from trade, leaving college students with educational credentials however with out the sensible or technical expertise employers want.
Compounding the problem, the Jap Caribbean spends round 14% of their schooling price range on post-secondary schooling, in comparison with 25% in Latin America and 32% in OECD international locations. With outdated laboratories, restricted digital infrastructure, and low capability to help inclusive schooling, many establishments are ill-equipped to organize college students for the calls for of immediately’s labor market. These challenges are additional amplified by the emigration of extremely expert staff, who typically depart the area searching for higher alternatives overseas. This lack of expertise reduces the supply of expert professionals at residence and weakens the return on public investments in schooling.
The talents scarcity not solely impacts particular person job seekers; it undermines the broader economic system by stifling productiveness, lowering enterprise competitiveness, and limiting alternatives for innovation.
Partly because of lacking expertise, Jap Caribbean companies are usually not adequately investing in and fascinating in revolutionary actions. Solely 2.7% of companies in Grenada and three.2% of companies in Saint Lucia have human sources devoted to analysis and growth.
Analysis and growth is important for fostering creativity, growing new applied sciences, and bettering enterprise processes. For the Caribbean, funding in analysis and growth is especially vital to handle challenges in key sectors resembling tourism, agriculture, and renewable vitality, unlocking new alternatives for sustainable progress.
Nevertheless, many companies understand the price of innovation as too excessive relative to the market dimension. In small economies, companies typically consider that investing in innovation gained’t yield enough returns because of restricted native demand or the excessive prices of implementing new applied sciences. This notion discourages firms from pursuing innovation, limiting their progress and competitiveness.
There isn’t any single answer to those challenges – however there are clear areas for motion. First, post-secondary schooling ought to obtain extra consideration to make sure establishments are outfitted to ship related, high-quality coaching. Modernizing curricula to incorporate each technical and transversal expertise—resembling problem-solving, adaptability, and digital literacy—is important for getting ready youth for the calls for of immediately’s economic system.
Equally vital is fostering nearer collaboration between instructional establishments and the personal sector. Whereas some establishments already keep partnerships—significantly in tourism—there’s a must develop these efforts throughout a wider vary of sectors. Deeper and extra diversified collaboration can assist be sure that coaching packages align with evolving trade wants, encourage workplace-based studying alternatives, and help analysis and growth initiatives that foster innovation and job creation.
Increasing regional frameworks, resembling shared studying requirements and qualification recognition, would enable for larger mobility of expertise and guarantee constant ability growth throughout the area. For small island states, such collaboration additionally provides a sensible benefit: the power to pool sources and profit from cost-sharing alternatives, making schooling and coaching methods extra environment friendly and sustainable. Lastly, addressing limitations to innovation by creating incentives for companies to put money into analysis and growth and bettering digital infrastructure will assist unlock the area’s financial potential.
The World Financial institution is working with Caribbean international locations to help these targets. The OECS Abilities and Innovation Challenge is one instance. With $36 million in financing, the venture focuses on enhancing youth expertise, fostering regional collaboration, and strengthening a tradition of innovation. By supporting 40,000 younger individuals with focused coaching, establishing frequent studying requirements, and inspiring partnerships between companies and post-secondary establishments, the initiative goals to construct an ecosystem the place innovation and expertise growth drive progress.
Past the Jap Caribbean, international locations like Guyana and Belize are additionally stepping up efforts to shut the talents hole. In Guyana, the World Financial institution is supporting the federal government’s funding in a broad set of expertise wanted to energy its quickly increasing economic system—with a powerful emphasis on technical and vocational schooling and coaching. In the meantime in Belize, the place ladies’s labor power participation stays considerably decrease than males’s, a forthcoming venture will deal with early childhood growth and feminine empowerment—with a devoted part geared toward increasing ladies’s employment alternatives by expertise growth and help for companies within the care and schooling sectors.
The Caribbean holds immense potential. Tapping into that potential would require a coordinated effort, long-term funding, and a shared dedication to aligning expertise with alternative. Encouragingly, that work is already underway.
