Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

More than $5.6 bil­lion—and count­ing.

That’s how much Trinidad and To­ba­go has spent on the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) be­tween 2010 and 2024. 

Over the past 15 years, the URP has been a con­stant fix­ture in the coun­try’s pub­lic spend­ing, cost­ing tax­pay­ers bil­lions while at­tempt­ing to pro­vide short-term em­ploy­ment to thou­sands.

Dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion (2011–2015), the pro­gramme’s ex­pen­di­ture to­talled ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.6 bil­lion—an an­nu­al av­er­age of $512 mil­lion. 

In con­trast, be­tween 2016 and 2024, un­der Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s PNM gov­ern­ment, URP’s to­tal spend was around $2.3 bil­lion, av­er­ag­ing $257.8 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.

The sin­gle high­est year of ex­pen­di­ture was 2015, when $717.5 mil­lion was spent—25 per cent more than the sec­ond-high­est to­tal, $572.5 mil­lion in 2014. 

At the op­po­site end of the spec­trum, the low­est spend came in 2021 at the height of the glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic: $258.7 mil­lion.

BOX

URP Ex­pen­di­ture Be­tween 2010 and 2024

2010-$441.2 mil­lion

2011-$441.2 mil­lion

2012-$423.6 mil­lion

2013-$406.9 mil­lion

2014-$572.5 mil­lion

2015-$717.5 mil­lion 

2016-$349.8 mil­lion

2017-$299.9 mil­lion

2018-$272.1 mil­lion

2019-$281.4 mil­lion

2020-$281.4 mil­lion

2021-$258.7 mil­lion 

2022-$274.4 mil­lion

2023-$307.8 mil­lion

2024-$302.4 mil­lion (re­vised es­ti­mate)

Ac­cord­ing to bud­get doc­u­ments, 19,788 peo­ple re­ceived ben­e­fits from the pro­gramme be­tween Oc­to­ber 2023 and June 2024. 66 per cent of them were fe­male.

URP, as its name sug­gests, is de­signed to of­fer short-term em­ploy­ment and de­vel­op­ment to par­tic­i­pants, mak­ing them more busi­ness savvy and ap­peal­ing in the job mar­ket.

Be­tween mid-2023 and the end of 2024, ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Bank’s Eco­nom­ic Dat­a­pack, the un­em­ploy­ment rate in­creased by al­most two per cent (3.7 per cent to 5.5 per cent).

The Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) al­so re­port­ed an in­crease in un­em­ploy­ment.

“In quar­ter 1, 2025, the av­er­age num­ber of per­sons with jobs for all sec­tors was 558,900. Com­pared to the 4th quar­ter of 2024, the over­all av­er­age em­ploy­ment across all in­dus­tries record­ed a de­crease of 2.3 per cent,” it said.

Ac­cord­ing to the CSO’s da­ta, there are around 28,900 un­em­ployed peo­ple.

From re­lief to re­liance: Re­search shows work­ers left stag­nant

Last May, Pub­lic Pol­i­cy An­a­lyst Dr Mar­sha De Souze pub­lished a doc­tor­al re­search study on URP called ‘The Per­cep­tion of the Par­tic­i­pants of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gram on Em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty: A So­cial Pol­i­cy Ini­tia­tive in Trinidad and To­ba­go’.

Not­ing that lit­tle to no lit­er­a­ture ex­ists on un­em­ploy­ment pro­grammes in Trinidad and the Caribbean, Dr De Souze sought to of­fer some clar­i­ty.

“What we of­ten do is take pro­grammes and ideas from de­vel­oped coun­tries and bring them here with­out look­ing at our mar­ket and with­out look­ing at our de­mand and sup­ply for labour, and then we de­vel­op a pro­gramme, give peo­ple a stipend for do­ing work, and they be­come de­pen­dent on the pro­gramme, and the pro­gramme is not ad­dress­ing the de­mand for labour in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said.

Be­tween 2019 and 2024, Dr De Souze in­ter­viewed 12 pro­gramme par­tic­i­pants–six males and six fe­males of vary­ing ages and eth­nic­i­ties. One of the par­tic­i­pants has worked with the pro­gramme for 17 years.

She dis­cov­ered that par­tic­i­pants val­ued the pro­gramme a lot be­cause it of­fered much-need­ed fi­nan­cial re­lief.

How­ev­er, her re­search showed that while the pro­gramme’s the­o­ret­i­cal struc­ture is ex­cel­lent, it is not achiev­ing its man­date be­cause there is an ab­sence of fund­ing for in­di­vid­ual de­vel­op­ment.

The URP was in­tend­ed as a short-term un­em­ploy­ment pro­gramme, but de­spite re­quire­ments for train­ing and part­ner­ships to sup­port par­tic­i­pants’ self-suf­fi­cien­cy, no sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment has been made to help them ex­it the pro­gramme through job train­ing or em­ploy­ment sup­port.

“Some of the par­tic­i­pants would have been there be­fore that pe­ri­od (2019 to 2024). Al­though the Cab­i­net minute that es­tab­lished the pro­gramme has stip­u­la­tions for train­ing and part­ner­ship with oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies about self-suf­fi­cien­cy on the par­tic­i­pants’ be­half, monies have not been in­vest­ed in get­ting par­tic­i­pants to ex­it the pro­gramme, in terms of train­ing and hav­ing them ac­tive­ly look for oth­er jobs. Re­mem­ber, the URP was de­signed to be a short-term un­em­ploy­ment pro­gramme.

“In terms of de­vel­op­ing the par­tic­i­pants to ex­it the pro­gramme faster and help­ing these par­tic­i­pants deal with their em­ploy­ment is­sues–if it can be dealt with, be­cause not every­body’s sit­u­a­tion is the same–it doesn’t have that,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to De Souze’s study, be­tween 2015 and 2024, no URP work­ers were of­fered for­mal train­ing, as re­port­ed in a train­ing de­part­ment’s in­ter­nal re­port.

Af­ter com­plet­ing their URP ser­vice, most of De Souze’s par­tic­i­pants went on to do sim­i­lar jobs: clean­ing, sani­ti­sa­tion, jan­i­to­r­i­al work, road work, and street main­te­nance.

Two for­mer par­tic­i­pants are now self-em­ployed, work­ing in plumb­ing and ma­son­ry.

“No par­tic­i­pant re­port­ed get­ting as­sis­tance with job search ac­tiv­i­ties, look­ing for a fu­ture job, or hav­ing guid­ance to move be­yond the pro­gramme. Up­on com­ple­tion, two par­tic­i­pants were re­ferred to oth­ers for a job through let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion.

“When asked about ca­reer coun­selling and 72 guid­ance in iden­ti­fy­ing ca­reer goals and ex­plor­ing job op­por­tu­ni­ties, the par­tic­i­pants had yet to re­ceive such aid while in the pro­gram,” the study found.

Among De Souze’s oth­er find­ings were re­ports of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, nepo­tism and ghost gangs in the pro­gramme.

“Per­sons per­ceive that pol­i­tics high­ly in­flu­ence the URP and get to work on the pro­gramme de­pend­ing on which po­lit­i­cal par­ty is in gov­ern­ment. Per­sons re­called that when gov­ern­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion changed, they stopped get­ting work in the pro­gramme. 

For in­stance, one par­tic­i­pant stat­ed, “Ad­min­is­tra­tion changed, and noth­ing again.’ An­oth­er added, “I did not stay there long be­cause they got rid of all the dai­ly paid work­ers when PNM came in­to pow­er.

Ac­cord­ing to De Souze’s re­port, “Par­tic­i­pants spoke of favour­ing rel­a­tives and close friends, es­pe­cial­ly by givi­wng them job op­por­tu­ni­ties and ben­e­fits. The par­tic­i­pants ex­plained sit­u­a­tions where nepo­tism was ev­i­dent in the URP. The par­tic­i­pant said, ‘I think every­body needs a fair chance. Not be­cause my aunt was work­ing there; I should come and take my aunt’s place be­cause she re­tired. They would take in a cousin or an aunt and not give every­body a fair chance; they need to give every­body a fair chance.” 

And while some par­tic­i­pants re­vealed the pres­ence of ghost gangs, De Souze’s re­search sug­gest­ed that the is­sue is not as preva­lent as it once was, as “the study finds URP fails to lift work­ers out and lacks train­ing and job sup­port”.

Rec­om­men­da­tions

Based on her find­ings, the pub­lic pol­i­cy an­a­lyst rec­om­mend­ed that:

* Pro­gramme fund­ing is in­creased to im­ple­ment de­vel­op­ment and em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty com­po­nents.

* Ob­jec­tive re­cruit­ment of ad­min­is­tra­tors is re­quired to ex­e­cute the pro­gramme’s em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty de­liv­er­ables.

* Of­fi­cers of the URP need to ex­e­cute the pro­gramme’s em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty de­liv­er­ables.

* Par­tic­i­pants’ da­ta is used to in­form de­ci­sions when pro­vid­ing train­ing with­in the pro­gramme.