KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As hun­dreds, pos­si­bly thou­sands, of peo­ple sign up for jobs un­der the Gov­ern­ment’s Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve, sev­er­al min­istries are prepar­ing to short­list ap­pli­cants and be­gin in­ter­views in the com­ing weeks.

At the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome, there was a steady flow of ap­pli­cants, many of whom said they had trou­ble ap­ply­ing for va­can­cies on the em­ploytt.gov.tt web­site over the week­end or weren’t tech-savvy. Oth­ers said they had al­ready ap­plied on­line and were now sub­mit­ting phys­i­cal copies.

Staff said the turnout in­clud­ed for­mer CEPEP work­ers seek­ing dai­ly-paid em­ploy­ment, along with many young job­seek­ers and a no­tice­able num­ber of ap­pli­cants over 40.

One heavy equip­ment op­er­a­tor said he al­ready has a job but wants greater sta­bil­i­ty, as his cur­rent work de­pends on job avail­abil­i­ty. Mean­while, some par­ents came with their adult chil­dren, hop­ing to help them se­cure em­ploy­ment in a dif­fi­cult job mar­ket. Among them was Mena Rag­bir, who ac­com­pa­nied her 27-year-old son, Dar­ri­an Ken­neth. They vis­it­ed sev­er­al min­istry booths and ap­plied for avail­able po­si­tions, al­though she not­ed that some were short-term con­tracts. Rag­bir said her son, a for­mer ma­chine main­te­nance op­er­a­tor at Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd, has been un­em­ployed since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic be­gan in 2020. She ad­mit­ted it has been frus­trat­ing watch­ing him strug­gle to find work de­spite mul­ti­ple ap­pli­ca­tions.

“I am very, very frus­trat­ed. I need him to get a job. He is my last child to get out of my hands to go in­to the work force, so I am plead­ing with any­one, please ac­cept him and let him get a job some­where in some min­istry.” Rag­bir praised the ini­tia­tive for mo­bil­is­ing State re­cruit­ment and giv­ing cit­i­zens a chance to con­nect di­rect­ly with hir­ing min­istries. She said staff were help­ful and in­for­ma­tive, but re­mained un­sure whether her son would be suc­cess­ful.

Ra­jesh Ramkissoon, 32, a heavy equip­ment op­er­a­tor and truck dri­ver, said he was ap­ply­ing to the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries and the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, giv­en his Class 3, 4, 5, and 7 li­cences and years of ex­pe­ri­ence. He said it was re­fresh­ing to ap­ply through an open process rather than re­ly­ing on con­nec­tions. Ramkissoon, a sin­gle fa­ther of an eight-year-old daugh­ter, said he cur­rent­ly works on an on-call ba­sis, wait­ing for day jobs, and hopes the dri­ve will pro­vide a steady in­come. He re­called be­ing asked to pay $5,000 for a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion job years ago, on­ly to be told lat­er that his name was still “down the list”.

“I hope that it is some­thing we can move for­ward with, hop­ing that jobs ac­tu­al­ly come out of it and it is not a front. Be­cause you know, most of the time, they just paint a pic­ture, and af­ter the pic­ture is paint­ed, there is noth­ing,” Ramkissoon said.

At the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s booth, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary In­di­ra Ram­paul-Ched­die said the re­sponse was en­cour­ag­ing, al­low­ing the min­istry to con­nect di­rect­ly with job seek­ers and speed up re­cruit­ment. “It shows that the Gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous about fill­ing the va­can­cies and about cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for our young peo­ple, our un­em­ployed, and our un­der­em­ployed peo­ple out there,” Ram­paul-Ched­die said. She said the AG’s of­fice was hir­ing for a range of po­si­tions. “At the AG’s of­fice, we have some va­can­cies for at­tor­neys-at-law, busi­ness op­er­a­tions co­or­di­na­tors, hos­pi­tal­i­ty at­ten­dants, and of­fice sup­port as­sis­tants, so it is a range.” Ram­paul-Ched­die said short­list­ing has al­ready be­gun, and in­ter­views will start next week, fol­lowed by ini­tial hires. How­ev­er, she not­ed that not every­one will be brought on at once due to space con­straints.

A pub­lic ser­vant for 20 years, she said it was the first ini­tia­tive of its kind.

Al­most every min­istry and sev­er­al state agen­cies par­tic­i­pat­ed, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of Health and var­i­ous Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties, which of­fered con­tract po­si­tions such as change co­or­di­na­tor, re­search spe­cial­ist, and con­tent cre­ation spe­cial­ist. Dai­ly-rat­ed va­can­cies were al­so open for car­pen­ters, per­i­fo­cal op­er­a­tors, and labour­ers.

Mean­while, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent­ly an­nounced job re­cruit­ment dri­ve, de­scrib­ing the promise of 20,000 new po­si­tions as “a drop in the buck­et” com­pared to what he says is the scale of un­em­ploy­ment un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion.Gon­za­les claimed that more than 60,000 peo­ple have lost their jobs since the gov­ern­ment took of­fice, ques­tion­ing how it now in­tends to de­liv­er an ad­di­tion­al 40,000 jobs to meet pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions.

“Twen­ty thou­sand CEPEP and URP jobs is just a drop of wa­ter in the buck­et. As a mat­ter of fact, our last cal­cu­la­tion was over 60,000 peo­ple los­ing their jobs; con­tract em­ploy­ment, short-term em­ploy­ment and all of the min­istries, the fir­ing of ex­ec­u­tives in the en­tire state sec­tor. So, 20,000 jobs be­ing opened up and the gov­ern­ment pre­tend­ing as though it is a re­sponse to any­thing that they would have done.”

“I am telling you if — and there’s a big if — if they hap­pen to em­ploy 20,000 peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go, they have fired 60,000 peo­ple, and they need to ex­plain to the pop­u­la­tion where they are go­ing to get 40,000 more jobs.”

The gov­ern­ment has tout­ed the ini­tia­tive as part of its post-bud­get re­cov­ery plan, aimed at stim­u­lat­ing "re­al em­ploy­ment for re­al peo­ple" through state and com­mu­ni­ty-based pro­grammes.