August 18, 2023
The CEO of a regional recruitment firm is congratulating the success of the government’s youth summer programmes, lauding it as a positive for young Bermudians, the public and private sectors and the economy as a whole.
“It’s great that so many young people were able to get hands-on work experience that’s relevant to their career goals, plus unique opportunities to network with business leaders that could better help them be top-choice candidates when the time comes. Those opportunities may have been hard to come by otherwise,” says Joseph Boll, CEO of Caribbean Employment Services Inc., a market-leading digital talent acquisition service that aims to connect the top talent from the Caribbean with employers in the Caribbean and abroad.
Boll noted the added benefit of some participants being able to earn their own wages so they can experience what it’s like being in the workforce, and hence better able to adapt once their studies are complete.
“Most new entrants to the workforce say that having sufficient and relevant work experience is a major impediment to being hired, so it’s great to see that hundreds of young Bermudians will not have that struggle thanks to these programmes,” the CEO said. “At the same time, it positions them to possibly get jobs with the very same organizations they worked for this summer, since they already have specific training that would place them a cut above other candidates.”
Having a clear, accessible pathway that would enable them to transition directly from school to the workplace is a challenge many talented, skilled young people in the Caribbean have. It has been one of the biggest contributors to brain drain and high instances of skilled workers migrating away from the region to pursue employment opportunities abroad instead. Programmes like this help to provide that pathway, and in turn that can help cut back on brain drain, according to Boll.
However, Boll said businesses stand to benefit from these programmes too. He noted that it means the workforce benefits from talented young people who can more readily transition into the labour market, helping to reduce potential labour gaps.
“While our organization, Caribbean Employment Services Inc., aims to help bridge the gap between jobseekers and employers, we believe that programmes that help young people to transition directly into the workforce without difficulty are necessary for a strong labour market, and the successes of such programmes are to be commended.”