IOE General-Secretary, Brent Wilton.
Head of the International Organisation of Employers (IOE), Secretary General has warned employer organizations in Montserrat and across the region that they must play a part in tackling the youth unemployment levels.
The IOE secretary general Brent Wilton was speaking at the recent opening of the 4th Caribbean Academy for the management of employer’s organization CAMEO Four at the Halcyon birex Resort in Antigua.
He suggested that high youth unemployment level is a ticking time bomb, noting that with so many excluded from society, serious problems will develop.
He said if nothing was done in this area an underclass would develop in society with serious social consequences which would be felt by Montserrat and other regional territories in years to come.
Mr. Wilton emphasised that employer organizations have a responsibility as business representatives to be doing all they can to address those challenges now and go to governments with the answers that are required.
Wilton added that places like Antigua and Barbuda should recognise it’s on its own when it comes to finding economic solutions.
The three day meeting of employers federations from across the Caribbean is took place at Halcyon Resort under the theme “Analyzing and Shaping the Business Environment to Influence Policy Development.”
Speaking on the issue, Brent elaborated: “” We are concerned about in terms of youth unemployment with regards to some economies in particular is the level of the unemployment,” he said. “If you have that size of your population excluded from participating in the community as active participants in work, then you are creating a time bomb.”
He said you will end up with generational unemployment, you end up with low incomes, heavy burdens on the state, in terms of income protection. “These people are looking to the grey economy for opportunities of work, all that turn into crime, and that is not good for communities at large, it’s not good for business and we need to stop this from happening,” he cautioned.
Brent noted that not to bother about such an economy which results from employment, he says no one will for anyone else. “…whether that community is going to be a successful one…at the end of the day if we are not bothered as communities within the island – what sort of future we shape, then no one else is going to care for us, no one is no one is going to come in a fix the problems for us we have to do it ourselves and that requires quite a big conversation at national level.
At the end of the day I mean although the world is more integrated we’re still on our own, every country is a nation state and at the end of the day it’s going to be the people of that nation state that decide whether or not that economy is going to be one, whether that community is going to be a successful one and so at the end of the day if we are not bothered as communities within the island about what sort of future we shape, then no one else is going to care for us, no one is going to come in a fix the problems for us we have to do it ourselves and that requires quite a big conversation at national level.
