Help qualified, jobless youth

THE EDITOR: Kindly allow me a space in your daily Newsday to make an appeal to the Government of the day to take a serious look at unemployment in this country. Our greatest resources are our human resources, and if we as a society cannot harness these resources, then there will always be issues of poverty and crime. There are a lot of qualified and experienced young people coming out from our schools and universities each year with five and six O-Level passes and degrees, many of whom cannot find a decent job.

Tell me: Is this right? One suggestion that I have that could probably help is that the Government sets up a body or organisation that goes into every district or community, whether in Port-of-Spain or rural Caroni, or wherever, and seek out our young who are unemployed and frustrated and try to render some assistance. We all know of parents who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send their children to UWI, and when they get qualified and go on the job market and cannot find a quality paying professional job, they are forced to migrate, thus causing the old brain drain that occurred during the ’80s to happen all over again.  It is my hope that the authorities look into this matter before more of our valuable human resources are lost. Please Mr Prime Minister and Minister of Labour, help our unemployed youths.

HAFEEZ ABDOOL
Retired Public Servant
San Juan