Jobs hurdle

With Barbados’ unemployment level just above ten per cent, school leavers will face a “double challenge” when they try to enter the workforce.
According to Senator Harry Husbands, parliamentary secretary in the Prime Minister’s office: “You are competing not only with the people who are sitting next to you . . . but you are also competing with people who have recently become unemployed.”
Husbands noted, however, that “the more educated you are, the less likely you are to be unemployed” since “the least educated take the worst hit”.
“Whenever the crisis comes around, people with the least education, generally speaking, are the ones who get laid off first,” he said.
The senator said even “basic entry-level” jobs in the banking sector now go to people with degrees due to the large number of people who apply.
Husbands stressed the importance of continuing training and education in various disciplines.
“It is expected that [you] will have to change not your job but your career four times in your working life,” he said.
The only way to do this, he noted, was to take advantage of every training opportunity so that when “the downturn comes or when the company closes”, one would be in a position to work elsewhere.
He was speaking during a world of work symposium for secondary school students that was hosted by the Barbados International Business Association and the Barbados Association of Guidance Counsellors at the Accra Beach Hotel.