July 21, 2023
Following the 45th CARICOM Heads of Government meeting held in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in July, a tentative date of March 31, 2024, has been set for full enactment of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). The long-awaited initiative could be a gamechanger for workers in the region, as well as the labour market; and the CEO of a leading Caribbean recruitment service says businesses need to start planning how they can best take advantage of it from now.
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. The firm’s CEO, Joseph Boll, said looking forward to CSME is one thing but making strategic plans is another.
“It’s expected that CSME will improve the labour market and hopefully help to address longstanding issues like brain drain and overreliance on expatriate workers,” said Boll. “But the logistics also need to be considered and planned out beforehand. How will a jobseeker on one island know of a job opening they would be perfect for hundreds of miles away?
“Are businesses planning on CARICOM Member-States or respective governments putting together some way to share job vacancies inter-island? How do they plan on ensuring fair hiring practices, such as making sure candidates in CSME countries have just as much time to apply for positions and interview as local candidates? Are they expecting candidates to spend money to fly out-of-country for a job interview, just to be turned down?”
Boll noted that employers do not have much more time to figure things out, with the proposed enactment date just some eight months away. He repeated calls for employers and jobseekers alike to be more willing to take the recruitment and job hunt process online to improve efficiency as well as reach a wider talent pool. Likewise, he pointed to the kind of services offered by companies like his, which specialize in digital talent acquisition, recruitment and job placement, as a way for employers to address some of these logistic issues.
“You can’t expect a talented worker in Barbados to be listening to the radio of St. Lucia, hoping to hear a radio advertisement for your job opening,” the CEO noted. “Digitalization of this process makes sense for when the time comes, and firms like ours are ready to assist with this.”