Rise in foreign labour

AS NEW HOTELS are being constructed, developers are submitting more applications to employ foreign labourers.

Immigration officer Jennifer Callender gave that assessment yesterday as she noted the increasing number of work permit applications the Immigration Department has received over the past two years.

“In 2023, we had 2 194 applications for work permits. Of those, 237 were long-term and 1 414 were short-term. In 2024, we had a slight increase – we had 2 815 applications.

“From January to August 2024, there were 140 long-term work permits and 1 068 short-term. From September to December, the data has not been aggregated, but there were an additional 1 600 applications,” Callender said.

She was taking part in a panel discussion at the Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC) business luncheon at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill, St Michael. Barbados: A Brain Drain Nation Or Expat Haven? was the theme.

Callender explained that the increase in new hotels contributed to the influx of foreign, skilled tradespeople, most of whom were from Spanishspeaking countries. “We are currently undergoing a construction boom. Everywhere you’re going to see somebody building a hotel. There are many big brands that are coming to Barbados, brought by our attractive sun, sea, and sand.

“We have started with the recently finished Wyndham at Sam Lord’s Castle. They are currently constructing the Indigo Hotel on Hastings Main Road. They’ve started the Hyatt in Bay Street and there are several projects in the north as well. There’s Royalton and the Pendry Hotels, which are coming on stream,” she said.

Major projects

“There are other major projects in various stages of construction; for example, the Geriatric Hospital. This has created an increased demand for construction workers and skilled persons.

“We are seeing a lot of masons, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, who are coming into Barbados because as this level of infrastructural work is beyond the scope of our local labour market, employers have had to import skilled workers. They have mainly been from China, India and Latin America, with the majority coming from Mexico, Colombia and Cuba,” Callender noted.

She said there were smaller construction firms which had secured subcontracts and were mainly sourcing their workers regionally, the majority from Jamaica and Guyana.

Industries

Agriculture and health care were some of the other industries she identified as requiring foreign professionals.

The Immigration officer said that though there has been an increase, she did not believe Barbadians were being deprived.

“We do see a lot of work permit applications, but I do not believe that our local labour force is being disadvantaged. We have not received any complaints officially. There might be some, but we have not received any officially to state that persons are being disadvantaged in our local labour market.”

Director of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy Unit, Leo Preville, senior Immigration officer Tricia Lashley and professor of management and organisational behaviour at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill, Dwayne Devonish, were also on the panel.

Inchcape’s head of human resources, Caribbean market, Sanella Sanford, was the moderator.

Lashley said that the employers who seek to recruit outside talent have to provide evidence before their applications are approved.

“They also have to provide evidence that they made efforts to recruit locally. I’m sure we’ve seen ads saying, ‘having advertised for the post of’ in the newspapers. In order to be eligible for long-term permits, the prospective employers must sufficiently prove that no resident, or Barbadian resident, is capable or willing to provide the requirements of the position in question,” she explained.

Preville noted that the Caribbean experiences high immigration rates, and pointed to a 2020 study by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs which found that nearly a fifth of the region’s population lived outside the country and territories of origin.

The rate of outward migration placed Caribbean states among the countries with the highest global immigration rates, Preville said.

ILO study

He also cited an ongoing study by the International Labour Organisation and CARICOM Secretariat Unit, which began in January, whose preliminary analysis indicated that The Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, and Barbados were the main net receivers of migrants from other CARICOM states.

“Guyana, Haiti and Jamaica are the main senders of migrants of CARICOM nationals to other CARICOM member states. All 15 member states are actually net senders of migrants to the rest of the world. In that 15, Haiti, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname are the leading senders,” he added.

Devonish, addressing the brain drain phenomenon, referenced a survey he conducted with 2 000 people that contributed to the National Policy for Youth 2023.

Low wages, underemployment for the highly educated, low public sector salaries and high cost of living contributed to the youth migration.

“A lot of these young people left because they saw better economic opportunities. They believe things like the cost of living were a bit more palatable in those receiving destinations,” he said, adding that nurses and teachers relocated for similar reasons.

“We’ve seen a tremendous amount of outward migration of teachers. The emigrant teachers are often observed in the secondary school system. These were teachers who cited things like the lack of appointments, or the sluggish progression to appointments and the relatively low public sector wages. These are choruses that have been sung by many.” (TG)