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Saint Lucia Employers Federation (SLEF) Joseph Alexander.
Though welcoming the recent announcement of a slight decrease in Saint Lucia’s unemployment rate, Executive Director of the Saint Lucia Employers Federation (SLEF) Joseph Alexander has said that at 20.1 percent it is still “much too high” and only a major investment can bring it down.
He believes that the aim should be to keep unemployment below 10 percent and anything higher is “unconscionable.”
Statistics show a 1.5 percent decrease in unemployment in the first quarter of 2017 as compared to the last quarter of 2016.
The SLEF will meet with Prime Minister Allen Chastanet next week, through the private sector council, where it will put forth its suggestions on how to bring investment to the island and improve unemployment figures.
According to Alexander, a major investment is the only thing that will bring about change.
“I am glad that we can see a decline but… without a major investment in St. Lucia we can never bring those figures down,” he said.
On the issue of youth unemployment, which declined from 43.1 percent in the last quarter of 2016 to 38.7 in the first quarter of 2017, Alexander said that a significant drop in the number of yearly school leavers should have produced better results.
“Things are even worse than before because nowadays its about 2200 children who leave school every year. In the past, it used to be almost 3000. So with a lesser number of children leaving school, the employment rate by itself should even be going down because less people are leaving school,” he reasoned.
He called for unity among citizens and hopes that some major developmental project/s will come to change things around.
“Let us put our heads together as one country,” he said.
In early May, the prime minister, in response to news of the decrease in unemployment, said his government had pledged to work towards a rate of no more than 15 percent by 2021.
He noted that the country’s unemployment rate had increased “significantly” from 14 percent in 2007 to above 20 percent where it has “stubbornly remained”, while the overall economy has been growing at an average rate of 1.3 percent from 2006 to 2016.
Chastanet said that investments within the coming months will create employment throughout the island, particularly in the sectors of tourism, agriculture and construction.
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