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Youth employment crisis in the C’bean must be addressed – LaRocque
Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ambassador Irwin LaRocque has called for greater focus to be placed on the creation of jobs for youths within the Region.
Ambassador LaRocque who was speaking at the Twenty-Sixth Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) On Labour and Gender held at CARICOM’s headquarters at Liliendaal yesterday said “the situation of youth unemployment has reached unprecedented proportions globally and our Region is no exception.”
CARICOM Secretary General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque
He quoted from 2012 ILO (International Labour Organization) Report, ‘The Youth Employment Crisis: Time for Action’ to highlight the serious long-term implications of this situation when he said “The current youth employment crisis is undermining belief in the norm that each successive generation will see improvements in its employment and economic prospects. It is also threatening the principle of equality of opportunity across generations.” The Report he said, also highlights the threat which this situation poses with regard to the growing gap in inequality within the current cohort of youths.
The CARCOM Secretary General outlined that there is within the Caribbean region significant unemployment and under employment existing alongside acute skill shortages in some key sectors of our economies.
“The lack of access to technology by many of our young people has the potential to widen both the employment and poverty gaps, and this needs to be addressed. In addressing this issue, this Council will have to take into account the need to ensure that our human capacity development becomes more relevant to our society’s needs in the context of the priorities established within the Strategic Plan. There should also be the recognition of the imperative to engage our youth in ways which will use their innate creativity to contribute to their own development and prospects for employment” said LaRocque.
He posited that the technologically savvy younger generation with their creative abilities can provide a platform for the Region to take advantage of the untapped potential within the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector and in the creative industries.
LaRocque explained that ICT is opening up new vistas and “we need to ensure that the Community is well placed to fulfill the potential it offers for employment and entrepreneurship. Our Heads of Government are seized of the opportunities for ICT to be the new frontier for regional integration and have outlined a programme for its development, including the creation of a Single ICT space and the use of ICTs to engender economic growth and social development.”
CARICOM’s Secretary General, speaking to the respective regional Ministers that were present for the meeting, outlined that their agenda reflects the importance of ICT in helping to achieve a key social and economic goal, that being decent work.
He said that they have established the legal and institutional arrangements for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), but there remain some issues to be addressed.
These include a “Labour Market Information System which would provide a foundation for effective deployment of skills under the CSME. This would serve to alleviate the situation in which there may be a surplus in specific skills in some Member States which are needed in others” said LaRocque.
He added that “we must also move to ensure the ability of women and men to participate equally and equitably in all aspects of life under the CSME.”
“Governments and other stakeholders, including the private sector, have an important role to play in promoting and advancing policy coherence through the integration of Labour and Gender issues in all aspects of our Development Agenda” said the CARICOM Secretary General.
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