Before I begin with the post, I'd just like to bring your attention to a change in format I've made to the blog as of this post. Instead of placing in-text citations and a reference list at the end as with previous posts, I've embedded links in the text to references instead. I find this to be a much more suitable format for referencing given the media used and will be implementing it in future posts for all reference articles I used which are publicly available online. If I reference print media where I only have physical copies, I will use the old style of referencing with citations and a reference list at the end. So with that little piece of housekeeping aside, let's get on with the post.
The first three posts on this blog focused on outlining the political system of Trinidad and Tobago, showing how it disadvantages the educated youth of the nation and recommending changes to the system to correct its deficiencies. The next round of posts will focus on the economy of Trinidad and Tobago and follow the same basic formula. So this first post will outline how the economy of Trinidad and Tobago has contributed to the oppression of the educated youth in Trinidad and Tobago, with the subsequent posts zeroing on specific issues and proposing solutions to them.
Economic oppression refers to the denial of the rights of individuals to participate in the economy or denial of fair economic treatment. It can take the form of low wages, discriminatory hiring practices, denial of equal opportunity or forced labour.
For the young people of this country, the economic situation can best be described as depressing. We are the unfortunate beneficiaries of decades of economic mismanagement, globalisation and the laziness and ignorance of our forefathers. The economic situation is so bad in this country that many of us are unsure if we would be able to earn enough money to survive and have a bleak outlook on our futures. Let us examine the specific economic issues faced by the educated youth which have led to this mindset.
Lack of Suitable Employment Opportunities
The employment situation for the educated youth in general is dismal to say the least. There is an enormous lack of opportunities here for us forcing many to either accept underemployment or to remain unemployed. Now this has quite a lot to do with our geography and history but our people do share a large percentage of the blame when it comes to historical investment and economic policy. This is something we'd look at in greater detail in a subsequent post.
Underemployment refers to a situation where a person is employed for a job which does not adequately utilise their skills or expertise. This simply means that highly-qualified people are working jobs that don't require their qualifications. We see it here where people with degrees are forced to take low-paying, unskilled positions which they could have gotten without going through three to four years of university , meaning that they essentially wasted their time and money getting a degree. This can be an extremely distressing situation for ambitious young people to find themselves in and can lead to disillusionment and a host of psychological problems and even suicide in some cases.
Moreover as most tertiary education here is paid for by the government using taxpayers' dollars, this is wasteful from a fiscal standpoint as well. Why are we spending money to train people for positions that do not require their expertise or skills? You do not need a management degree to be a secretary or a finance degree to work at a fast food outlet. Either provide proper opportunities for the educated people when they graduate or stop funding degrees which obviously have no use to our society. Its a tremendous opportunity cost to the nation. All that the government is doing is setting up university graduates for disappointment and in some cases hardship because as will be discussed later on, a degree can actually hinder your ability to get a job.
As terrible as underemployment is, it is still preferable in the opinion of many than unemployment. Unemployment appears to be becoming a disturbing norm among recent university graduates, with many failing to find any job at all. The fact that the economy of Trinidad and Tobago is also presently in a recession due to poor economic policies and a drop in oil prices is not helping the situation. Many recent university graduates are unsure of what to do with their lives, having fired salvo after salvo of resumes into the job market with not even a response. Many have been unemployed for years which can be highly distressing, particularly if you do not have the means to support yourself otherwise. It is clear that the educated youth of this nation are uncertain about their futures and have lost all confidence in the economy to provide them with a means of survival.
It is a feeling I know all too well, where after weeks upon weeks of combing through recruitment advertisements you finally find a vacancy which you can apply for because you meet the requirements. You painstakingly craft your resume and cover letter to make it sound as professional as possible so you would have the best chance of getting a job. You mail or email it in along with the required documentation and then sit and wait. You just wait for weeks with no response not even an acknowledgement of receipt. Eventually you have to assume that you did not get the job and start the cycle all over again. So many of us have been going through this for months even years in some cases. The toll it can take on you psychologically is immense. To my fellow educated youth who are experiencing this situation, don't give up. I know the urge is strong but please keep fighting there are others like you out there, support each other through it.
National Service Obligations
Many of the educated youth have received financial assistance for their tertiary education expenses from the government through scholarships or programs like GATE. A stipulation often appended to this assistance is that the individual in question must complete a certain period of national service where they must work in either the public or private sector in Trinidad and Tobago or repay the government should they wish to pursue opportunities elsewhere. While initially this may seem fair, it has served to disadvantage many educated young people.
The local economy simply does not generate enough jobs for the population due to several factors including its size, lack of resources and competition from multi-national corporations. Therefore national service obligations essentially trap the educated youth in an impossible situation. They cannot find jobs to pay off their national service obligations and cannot afford to pay back the government because they have no money due to their lack of a job so therefore cannot leave the country to pursue opportunities elsewhere. This means that we have to sit and wait here until someone chooses to hire us. It is a good example of the poorly thought out policy decisions which have worked to our detriment in this nation.
The government has essentially taken our ambition and used it against us. Financial assistance has served as a means of ensuring reduced opportunity and quality of life for educated individuals because it is believed that we should stay and contribute to the country. Of course we would like to contribute to the country's development, but how are we to do that if we cannot get suitable jobs or get into positions of influence to use our skills and expertise to help solve the country's issues? When this legislation was being drafted did no one see the flaw in the plan? Or was it a deliberate mechanism to try to prevent the fabled, "brain-drain?" Look if you want to stop your educated people from leaving maybe try providing better opportunities for them so they would want to remain of their own free will. I'm just saying that might work better than legally bullying us to stay here.
Furthermore if one tries to escape one's obligations, the government can take legal action against you to make you repay the money you owe. This may decimate you financially and potentially destroy your personal and professional reputation so you run a huge risk if you try to do this. This happened recently when a scholarship winner was forced to pay back three million dollars through the court system because he did not return to the country to complete his national service obligations. If you cannot find a suitable job here then why should you not be free to pursue one elsewhere? Just because you had the misfortune of being born within a particular imaginary border drawn on the surface of the earth doesn't mean you have any obligation to that particular imaginary border.
Furthermore, it is actually financially beneficial for the government to let young people go abroad and work. They have families here and will repatriate funds from foreign countries through them, bringing in much needed foreign exchange for the nation. Maybe the government needs to start looking at it from that perspective rather than trapping the youth here and preventing them from reaching their full potential simply because of a false sense of national entitlement.
Nepotism and Corruption
The tribal nature of our society was discussed at length in my posts about the political system in Trinidad and Tobago. People are often favoured or discriminated against based on ethnicity, partisan affiliation, religion, gender and other factors. Tribalism also extends into the job market as well. Many positions in Trinidad and Tobago, especially in the public sector, are filled by political appointees. A lot of people either get their jobs because they belong to a particular ruling party which happens to be in power at the time or have some affiliation with a person holding a position within an organisation already. Sometimes, particularly in the public service, people are placed in positions solely to do the bidding of the dominant political party and not because of their suitability to the position.
As you could imagine, this ensures that incompetent individuals end up with jobs they cannot effectively do, to the detriment of their organisation and by extension the country as a whole. It also works to frustrate and demean talented, educated individuals who rightfully deserve those positions and would get them if they were appointed solely on the basis of merit. There are numerous examples of this occurring throughout our history. It seems that tribal affiliation always trumps actual expertise and qualifications here.
Even if by some miracle you manage to get a job in the public service based on your qualifications, it is likely that should the ruling political party lose the election, you will also lose your job because the new regime would desire to place their own people in positions of power. This means that despite how hard you worked while there and how qualified you are, you could still be fired simply because someone with the right connections wants your job.
This infantile mentality of selecting friends, relatives or party hacks over properly qualified individuals has not worked to the benefit of the country and as such needs to stop immediately. It is destroying our national institutions and is a driving factor behind the aforementioned, "brain-drain."
Low Salaries
This is rather self-explanatory, because there is a surplus of labour on the market in Trinidad, people are desperate for employment thus giving employers the upper hand when it comes to salary negotiation save for those workers who are represented by one of the militant trade unions in the country. As you can imagine this means that salaries offered to young people are often extremely low and barely livable. This is unreasonable and quite frankly an insult to people who have sacrificed years of their lives to get properly educated.
A further consequence of this trend of underpayment is that it may force people to work multiple jobs simply to get by. "The Millennial Side Hustle,", as the situation is often termed, is global trend where due to the unreasonably low salaries employers wish to pay young, educated people and unchecked inflation they are often forced to work multiple jobs should they wish to live the same lifestyle their parents and grandparents had at their age. This in turn reduces the amount of jobs available on the market even further because one person could have two jobs which could be done by two people instead. The consequences of this on the individual are that it increases their stress levels and works to the detriment of work-life balance. Systemically, it means less jobs available for everyone which can drive up unemployment rates. It works well for corporations however as it can reduce their salary expenditure but for the overall economy it is disastrous.
Another way low salaries oppress the educated youth in this country is that they reduce the amount of disposable income available to them. Disposable income could go toward leisure activities or it could be invested back into the economy through financial institutions, invested in a start-up company which would create jobs and allow for innovation or it could allow a couple to support a family, helping to keep the population stable. Employer's reluctance to pay decent salaries is therefore hurting our society rather than helping because it would mean less capital circulation, less investment and ultimately less jobs being created. If left unchecked, this trend of low salaries can lead to economic stagnation and collapse.
Additional consequences of these low salaries are less taxes for the government and less contributions to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS). This can degrade the quality of public services being offered to the country from a lack of funding. Moreover, it would reduce the amount of money available for the government to take care of the dependent segments of the population i.e. the elderly, sick or disabled. Already the National Insurance Board (NIB) is sounding the alarm that the country's social safety net is about to collapse from lack of contributions by working people. Since the contributions to the fund are calculated as a percentage of one's salary, lower salaries would mean lower contributions and possible collapse of the NIS system, responsible for funding social programs like pensions and disability grants.
Discriminatory Hiring PracticesMany of the educated youth have received financial assistance for their tertiary education expenses from the government through scholarships or programs like GATE. A stipulation often appended to this assistance is that the individual in question must complete a certain period of national service where they must work in either the public or private sector in Trinidad and Tobago or repay the government should they wish to pursue opportunities elsewhere. While initially this may seem fair, it has served to disadvantage many educated young people.
The local economy simply does not generate enough jobs for the population due to several factors including its size, lack of resources and competition from multi-national corporations. Therefore national service obligations essentially trap the educated youth in an impossible situation. They cannot find jobs to pay off their national service obligations and cannot afford to pay back the government because they have no money due to their lack of a job so therefore cannot leave the country to pursue opportunities elsewhere. This means that we have to sit and wait here until someone chooses to hire us. It is a good example of the poorly thought out policy decisions which have worked to our detriment in this nation.
The government has essentially taken our ambition and used it against us. Financial assistance has served as a means of ensuring reduced opportunity and quality of life for educated individuals because it is believed that we should stay and contribute to the country. Of course we would like to contribute to the country's development, but how are we to do that if we cannot get suitable jobs or get into positions of influence to use our skills and expertise to help solve the country's issues? When this legislation was being drafted did no one see the flaw in the plan? Or was it a deliberate mechanism to try to prevent the fabled, "brain-drain?" Look if you want to stop your educated people from leaving maybe try providing better opportunities for them so they would want to remain of their own free will. I'm just saying that might work better than legally bullying us to stay here.
Furthermore if one tries to escape one's obligations, the government can take legal action against you to make you repay the money you owe. This may decimate you financially and potentially destroy your personal and professional reputation so you run a huge risk if you try to do this. This happened recently when a scholarship winner was forced to pay back three million dollars through the court system because he did not return to the country to complete his national service obligations. If you cannot find a suitable job here then why should you not be free to pursue one elsewhere? Just because you had the misfortune of being born within a particular imaginary border drawn on the surface of the earth doesn't mean you have any obligation to that particular imaginary border.
Furthermore, it is actually financially beneficial for the government to let young people go abroad and work. They have families here and will repatriate funds from foreign countries through them, bringing in much needed foreign exchange for the nation. Maybe the government needs to start looking at it from that perspective rather than trapping the youth here and preventing them from reaching their full potential simply because of a false sense of national entitlement.
Nepotism and Corruption
The tribal nature of our society was discussed at length in my posts about the political system in Trinidad and Tobago. People are often favoured or discriminated against based on ethnicity, partisan affiliation, religion, gender and other factors. Tribalism also extends into the job market as well. Many positions in Trinidad and Tobago, especially in the public sector, are filled by political appointees. A lot of people either get their jobs because they belong to a particular ruling party which happens to be in power at the time or have some affiliation with a person holding a position within an organisation already. Sometimes, particularly in the public service, people are placed in positions solely to do the bidding of the dominant political party and not because of their suitability to the position.
As you could imagine, this ensures that incompetent individuals end up with jobs they cannot effectively do, to the detriment of their organisation and by extension the country as a whole. It also works to frustrate and demean talented, educated individuals who rightfully deserve those positions and would get them if they were appointed solely on the basis of merit. There are numerous examples of this occurring throughout our history. It seems that tribal affiliation always trumps actual expertise and qualifications here.
Even if by some miracle you manage to get a job in the public service based on your qualifications, it is likely that should the ruling political party lose the election, you will also lose your job because the new regime would desire to place their own people in positions of power. This means that despite how hard you worked while there and how qualified you are, you could still be fired simply because someone with the right connections wants your job.
This infantile mentality of selecting friends, relatives or party hacks over properly qualified individuals has not worked to the benefit of the country and as such needs to stop immediately. It is destroying our national institutions and is a driving factor behind the aforementioned, "brain-drain."
Low Salaries
This is rather self-explanatory, because there is a surplus of labour on the market in Trinidad, people are desperate for employment thus giving employers the upper hand when it comes to salary negotiation save for those workers who are represented by one of the militant trade unions in the country. As you can imagine this means that salaries offered to young people are often extremely low and barely livable. This is unreasonable and quite frankly an insult to people who have sacrificed years of their lives to get properly educated.
A further consequence of this trend of underpayment is that it may force people to work multiple jobs simply to get by. "The Millennial Side Hustle,", as the situation is often termed, is global trend where due to the unreasonably low salaries employers wish to pay young, educated people and unchecked inflation they are often forced to work multiple jobs should they wish to live the same lifestyle their parents and grandparents had at their age. This in turn reduces the amount of jobs available on the market even further because one person could have two jobs which could be done by two people instead. The consequences of this on the individual are that it increases their stress levels and works to the detriment of work-life balance. Systemically, it means less jobs available for everyone which can drive up unemployment rates. It works well for corporations however as it can reduce their salary expenditure but for the overall economy it is disastrous.
Another way low salaries oppress the educated youth in this country is that they reduce the amount of disposable income available to them. Disposable income could go toward leisure activities or it could be invested back into the economy through financial institutions, invested in a start-up company which would create jobs and allow for innovation or it could allow a couple to support a family, helping to keep the population stable. Employer's reluctance to pay decent salaries is therefore hurting our society rather than helping because it would mean less capital circulation, less investment and ultimately less jobs being created. If left unchecked, this trend of low salaries can lead to economic stagnation and collapse.
Additional consequences of these low salaries are less taxes for the government and less contributions to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS). This can degrade the quality of public services being offered to the country from a lack of funding. Moreover, it would reduce the amount of money available for the government to take care of the dependent segments of the population i.e. the elderly, sick or disabled. Already the National Insurance Board (NIB) is sounding the alarm that the country's social safety net is about to collapse from lack of contributions by working people. Since the contributions to the fund are calculated as a percentage of one's salary, lower salaries would mean lower contributions and possible collapse of the NIS system, responsible for funding social programs like pensions and disability grants.
Thanks in part to programmes like GATE, the younger generation does have a higher proportion of educated individuals in it than previous ones. This was discussed before in a previous post so I will not get into the details of how this has happened. However, this discrepancy between the current and previous generations has led to ageist discrimination in terms of hiring.
Many older people who presently hold higher managerial positions in local institutions do not possess higher education and as such see it as unnecessary or even a hindrance to performing one's duties. They may also be somewhat envious of the younger generation for being given the opportunity to get a higher education when they were not. Additionally, many of them simply fear that they will lose their jobs to us should they hire us as we are better qualified and once we gain the relevant work experience, we will supersede them.
Older managers also tend to view the educated youth as, "entitled," or ,"arrogant," simply because they have degrees. Moreover, they may view us as threats to them especially if they have gotten their posts due to nepotism and do not possess the proper qualifications. Because of this mindset, they tend to try to oppress educated young people by either not hiring them outright or placing them in menial positions which do not take full advantage of their skills and do not provide them with the opportunities to move up the organisational chart in an effort to frustrate them. Of course they do not think about what harm this could do to their organisation or succession planning. No once their job is safe, nothing else matters.
Typical strategies used by older individuals to justify this discrimination against the educated youth are as follows.
Overqualification
"Well you know you overqualified for this position right? We can't hire you."
When a potential employer tells you you are overqualified what it really means is that they don't want to pay you a salary that they believe is suitable to your qualifications. Now while an educated youth may not necessarily be demanding such a high salary for a job and may gladly work for a lower wage, it is assumed they will so they will not hire you. This is because the older generations believe we have the same mindset that they do in being driven solely by salary and benefits when selecting a job. In reality, while this is certainly a factor in our decision-making process, we may also be driven by passion and a desire to help society as well so salary would be less important to us.
Furthermore, if its a job that is significantly below your level of qualification, employers tend to assume that you would leave for greener pastures the first opportunity you get. This makes the employer think that they will waste money training you for a position and/or that they will just have to expend more money to find someone to replace you should you leave and thus refuse to hire you. While you may not have any intention of leaving, this is the general assumption.
Well to the employers of Trinidad and Tobago I have something to ask, would you be satisfied after sacrificing several decades of your life and working hard to get qualified only to be told that you do not deserve to have better employment opportunities than someone less qualified? Would you not seize better employment opportunities should they be offered to you? I'm pretty sure that the answer any sensible person would give is an unequivocal yes. So how then is it fair of you to expect the educated youth to not do the exact same thing you would do? Furthermore before making the assumption that we would do certain things, have you maybe thought about asking them if they would leave or demand a higher salary before dismissing us? Have you asked them if they are even motivated by salary in the first place? You might be surprised by the answers you get.
Lack of Experience
"You lack experience, come back when you get more."
Experience is a buzzword that employers like to throw around when hiring. A job advertisement without a request for prior work experience is a rarity in this country. The educated youth tend to lack the experience that employers want and thus loose out on job opportunities because of this.The general view is that experience makes an applicant objectively better at their job because it increases their knowledge of their job. But is this a reasonable stance to take? Well the answer is it depends.
Experience tends to make you good at doing one particular task, so for mostly skilled-based professions like sports, fishing or flying, experience can work to a candidate's advantage. Generally speaking, the more experience you have had performing a practical task, the better you will become at it. This is an unquestionable fact.
However, not all jobs are skill-based. Some jobs, like management or research jobs are more knowledge-based in nature, and knowledge-based fields are where experience can work to a candidate's disadvantage. While it is certainly possible to gain knowledge via work experience, in the information age it is not the most efficient way to accomplish this task. The knowledge you would gain from ten years on the job in the pre-internet era can now be acquired within a matter of hours or even minutes through a search engine with the right keywords.Or it can be gained via an educational institution. This erodes the advantage that experience can offer a candidate for these types of positions.
Furthermore, the rate of technological change and progress can render work experience moot and actually serve to disadvantage a candidate. Experience can make someone set in their ways and slow to adapt to rapid changes in technology which will make their organisations more efficient and profitable. If these people are in positions of power (which they tend to be in Trinidad) they can make their organisation less competitive. What employers should be valuing in today's dynamic environment are people who are lifelong learners and those who can learn and adapt quickly to rapid shifts in the environment. People who cannot do this can place you at a competitive disadvantage.
So given these considerations, why then is knowledge gained via experience seen as objectively preferable in the local job market to knowledge gained from a degree or via the internet? They are simply different ways to arrive at the same point after all. The reason there is an issue is because many of the managerial level employees who are doing the hiring and firing in organisations are from the older generations where technology wasn't where it was today. They had to work their way up and gain knowledge through experience in their time because there was no other option. So therefore, they impose this worldview on the contemporary paradigm even though its no longer applicable.
This antiquated mindset works to our detriment as educated youth in two ways. Firstly it prevents us from getting jobs which we may possess the knowledge for and could otherwise do save for a lack of experience. Secondly it leads to the illogical situation where everyone wants experience but no one is willing to hire you to give you the experience.
Employers need to adjust their hiring practices to suit the new paradigm. Experience is not always advantageous to performing a job and a more critical examination needs to be done when hiring than simply saying, "Experience good, degree bad."
Trivialization of Academic Qualifications
"Look, you feel you have a degree and know everything and want to come here and tell me what to do? Learn your place, leave me alone while I continue to place these square pegs in round holes."
This attitude is nothing more than a manifestation of the jealousy and fear of the educated youth that the average Trinidadian citizen seems to possess. It is an extension of the belief that work experience is the be all and end all when hiring coupled with the fear that an educated young person may take their job. If an employer makes a statement similar to the one in the example above in an interview, you are unlikely to be hired, even though you may be adequately qualified and capable of doing the job at hand. It is an extremely irrational stance to take and sadly will probably continue until the older generation leaves the workforce completely.
Non-recognition of the Economic Challenges Faced by the Educated Youth
As if the challenges listed above weren't enough on their own, our complaints often fall on deaf ears. For many Trinis, the plight of the educated youth when it comes to economic matters is often a trivial subject. Some members of the older generations would tell you that you don't have it as hard as they did in, "their days," and you should be grateful for all the opportunities you have now which are the fruits of their labour. This dismissive and quite frankly arrogant attitude is partially why we cannot get help for our problems. I am not denying that the older generations had their challenges to deal with, that is obviously true, but the fact that they don't recognise that we also have challenges, different to theirs but challenges nonetheless, is a bit insulting.
I will use myself and my family as an example to illustrate what I mean. My grandfather had a high school education, my grandmother didn't have anything beyond primary school. My grandfather with what is now considered basic education was able to land a well paying job with the local oil company. He worked while my grandmother stayed home as a housewife and they were able to afford a house and raise four children solely on my grandfather's salary. At the time he got married and had his first child, my grandfather was younger than the age I am now and could already afford a house and car etc.
My mother and father both don't have degrees, instead possessing diplomas. Yet by the time they were around my present age of twenty-seven, they were both able to land well-paying jobs and could afford to build a house and start a family. This was despite growing up relatively poorer than I and my brother did thanks to their efforts.
Now lets look at me. I am much more highly educated that both my parents and grandparents, with a BSc and MSC both with high honours plus technical qualifications and certifications. Yet I've been unable to find stable employment that would afford me the same opportunities my parents and grandparents had at my age. I cannot dream of affording a house or family because I simply am not making enough money to do so. Yet I spent comparatively more time being educated than my parents and grandparents.
My situation is sadly not unique. Many of my friends have the same problem of not being able to achieve financial stability. How then can older people honestly say that I and other members of the educated youth don't have any, "real problems?" Yes we don't have to deal with things like Small Pox, World War Two or the Civil Rights Protests and technology has made our lives somewhat easier. But we have different challenges, which are arguably much more difficult to deal with because they operate on a global scale. Climate change, resource exhaustion, automation, the anti-reason movement and the rise of populism are just a few examples of what our generation has to deal with in addition to not being able to achieve financial security.
This general trend of millenials being the most highly educated generation while also being the most educated and worst paid generation in history is something which is prevalent across the world. This is clearly indicative of a problem with our economic and social systems and should be addressed urgently by the governments of the world as it can lead to societal collapse. Too bad many of the older people in power don't believe we millenials have a problem. We're just entitled spoilt children who don't know what real problems are.
Conclusion
Based on the discussion above, it can clearly be concluded that the educated youth are severely disadvantaged by the economic system in Trinidad and Tobago. We cannot get jobs, achieve financial stability, invest or start families as a direct result of our economy. The social safety nets which have allowed/will allow our grandparents and parents to enjoy comfortable retirements are being eroded to the point where we may not have them available to us.
While these are issues that impact individuals, they also can have wider implications for the country and should be addressed. Swift policy changes need to be made else we may end up in dire economic straits. But as we should all probably know by now, this is most likely not going to be addressed because our, "leaders," tend to not care about the educated youth and many of them don't believe we have a problem. The problem will only be dealt with until they start seeing the impacts of it on the national economy.
The question is, what can be done about it? Well in my next couple posts I will attempt to address this question, identifying the key problems our economy faces and my proposed solutions to them.
