December 9, 2022
The fact that several Caribbean nations have moved to update the pay scales and salaries of public workers despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is “commendable”, according to the CEO of a leading recruitment service operating in the region.
Caribbean Employment Services Inc. is a market-leading digital talent acquisition service that aims to connect the top talent from the Caribbean with hiring managers, HR professionals and decision-makers in companies both within the Caribbean as well as abroad. Further, it aims to provide the region’s jobseekers and those who are already employed with news and resources related to Caribbean labour. As such, it has closely monitored developments relating to compensation in both the public and private sectors.
Joseph Boll, the organization’s CEO, previously spoke to the trademark resilience of the region as it recovered from the economic challenges of the pandemic even faster than initially projected by major international finance groups.
“A lot of international experts expected that the Caribbean would be in an economic downtown for five or more years after the pandemic,” said Boll. “Instead, not only did most countries rebound within just a few years, but a fair number of them also began helping residents cope with the extremely high cost of living around the world by raising wages where possible. That’s nothing short of remarkable for a region where many nations — despite their rapid recovery — have still not quite returned to pre-pandemic economic levels. This shows a commitment to help their respective nations’ people recover even as their governing bodies do.”
Several CARICOM Member States, for example, have either increased their national minimum wage, moved to implement minimum wage or increased wages for public or private sector workers over the last year. In most cases, governing bodies cited the increasing cost of living and global inflation as major deciding factors in the move. This despite the fact that global tourism came to a near-complete standstill just two years ago, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic first began wreaking havoc. For the Caribbean, where many nations rely on tourism as a primary source of GDP, the pandemic had the compounded detrimental effect of presenting health, labour and severe economic challenges.
Pent-up demand for travel, gradually-relaxing travel restrictions and successful attempts to diversify economies have swept the Caribbean region as a whole into a smooth recovery. However, there is still progress to be made to return to the economic levels of the past.
“This is why it’s particularly commendable that governments have moved to help with salary increases, when even they may not be comfortable with how GDP levels look at the moment,” Boll added. “We are, of course, happy to see this kind of development, and we look forward to what it means for employment and labour in the region in the months to come.”