GEISHA KOW­LESSAR ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The out­look for em­ploy­ment in T&T’s food ser­vices sec­tor has shift­ed dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the wake of the 2026 bud­get state­ment, which in­tro­duced high­er ex­cise du­ties on al­co­hol and to­bac­co prod­ucts.

The lat­est Busi­ness Out­look In­dex (BOI) for Q4 2025 of ex­ec­u­tives, com­piled by the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce in part­ner­ship with the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness, re­leased on De­cem­ber 10, re­veals how fis­cal pol­i­cy has re­shaped ex­pec­ta­tions for hir­ing in the in­dus­try. The sur­vey on which the BOI is based, was con­duct­ed both be­fore and af­ter the Oc­to­ber 13 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

Pri­or to the fis­cal pack­age, the food ser­vices sec­tor was among the most op­ti­mistic about ex­pand­ing its work­force.

Ex­ec­u­tives pro­ject­ed a 75 per cent like­li­hood of in­creased hir­ing with­in both six and 12 month pe­ri­od, plac­ing the sec­tor along­side ac­com­mo­da­tion and re­al es­tate as lead­ers in job cre­ation. Fi­nan­cial and in­sur­ance ac­tiv­i­ties al­so showed strong prospects, with a 63 per cent like­li­hood of hir­ing in the short term, though ex­pec­ta­tions ta­pered to 38 per cent over the year.

By con­trast, con­struc­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing were among the least like­ly to add jobs, with neg­a­tive out­looks of -18 per cent in the six-month hori­zon, while dis­tri­b­u­tion showed a mixed pic­ture, de­clin­ing from -6 per cent to -24 per cent over twelve months.

The shift un­der­scores the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the food ser­vices in­dus­try to con­sumer spend­ing pat­terns, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ar­eas tied to al­co­hol and to­bac­co sales.

With high­er prices now in ef­fect, busi­ness­es ap­pear re­luc­tant to ex­pand staffing, at least in the short term.

The up­dat­ed sur­vey re­sults show that with­in the next six months, none of the re­spon­dents ex­pect to in­crease hir­ing. In­stead, 40 per cent an­tic­i­pate a re­duc­tion in staff, while 60 per cent fore­see no change.

Look­ing fur­ther ahead to the next 12 months, 25 per cent of busi­ness­es still ex­pect to ex­pand em­ploy­ment, but half pre­dict job cuts and the re­main­ing 25 per cent ex­pect sta­bil­i­ty.

This marks a sig­nif­i­cant de­par­ture from ear­li­er pro­jec­tions, which sug­gest­ed stronger hir­ing mo­men­tum across the sec­tor.

In­dus­try stake­hold­ers had warned that the rip­ple ef­fects could ex­tend be­yond em­ploy­ment, po­ten­tial­ly af­fect­ing con­sumer spend­ing pat­terns and the over­all vi­bran­cy of the hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor.

With high­er prices like­ly to re­duce de­mand for al­co­hol and to­bac­co, busi­ness­es may strug­gle to main­tain prof­itabil­i­ty, lead­ing to tighter bud­gets and few­er op­por­tu­ni­ties for job cre­ation.

Mean­while, the fi­nan­cial out­look re­veals a sto­ry of cau­tious op­ti­mism, with lead­ers ex­press­ing grow­ing con­fi­dence in their per­for­mance over both the short and medi­um term.

Al­though cur­rent fi­nan­cial per­for­mance has been mixed, with on­ly three per cent of re­spon­dents de­scrib­ing it as “much bet­ter” and 43 per cent as “bet­ter,” a ma­jor­i­ty—54 per cent—still re­port­ed con­di­tions as “worse.”

This con­trast be­tween present chal­lenges and fu­ture ex­pec­ta­tions high­lights the re­silience or­gan­i­sa­tions are show­ing as they look ahead.

Over the next six months, sen­ti­ment shifts more pos­i­tive­ly.

Nine per cent of re­spon­dents ex­pect their fi­nan­cial out­look to be “much bet­ter,” while 39 per cent an­tic­i­pate it will be “bet­ter.”

Sev­en­teen per cent fore­see de­te­ri­o­ra­tion, but a sig­nif­i­cant 35 per cent be­lieve con­di­tions would re­main un­changed.

This bal­ance sug­gests that while un­cer­tain­ty per­sists, near­ly half of or­gan­i­sa­tions are prepar­ing for im­prove­ment in the near term.

Con­fi­dence grows even stronger when the hori­zon ex­tends to 12 months.