News

Government is set to initiate a programme at The University of the West Indies (UWI) that will, from this year, require Barbadian undergraduate students to give their services to the community. This comes against the backdrop of recent announcements by Government, in its budgetary proposal, that it would absorb the full cost of…

Labour representatives can count on this island’s Minister of Labour and Social Partnership Relations, Colin Jordan to keep relations at a respectable level. This was intimated recently as Minister Jordan engaged in wide-ranging talks with President of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), Cedric Murrell and General…

On June 21-22, 2018 the Ministry of Labour facilitated a sensitisation workshop in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The aim of the workshop was to make officers aware of the work of the IOM and how technical support could be made available. The workshop was attended by…

Barbados now has a new tool to support human resource management and development and enhance the island’s competitiveness. Dubbed the Barbados Standard Occupational Classification (BARSOC), it was recently revised as one of the initiatives under the Barbados Human Resource Development (HRD) Strategy, a programme financed principally through a grant provided by…

The energy sector is poised for significant growth, which could increase avenues for employment in the future. This was revealed recently by Chief Operations Officer (COO) of Profiles Caribbean Inc., Shane Howell, as he delivered the findings of a survey carried out by his agency on various sectors of Barbados’…

An opportunity for Barbados and the ILO Decent Work Team to explore opportunities to further work together also turned out to be an occasion for the island to highlight the inner workings of its model for Social Partnership. This occurred recently when Director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Decent Work Team,…

The Labour Department has a new head and he is focused on ensuring the business of that organisation is handled with “purposeful efficiency”. This includes the administration of labour legislation and lessening of adversarial labour and employment relations. He is Victor Felix, who has been appointed on promotion to the…

Members of the public are invited to register on the ideas4barbados forum, which is now live at https://labour.gov.bb/ideas4barbados. During her presentation of the Mini-Budget last month, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley stated that Barbadians would be allowed to play their part in the rebuilding of the country. Subsequently, persons were…

The rate of unemployment for 2017 stood at 10.0 percent, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from the rate of 9.7 per cent recorded at the end of 2016. According to data produced by the Barbados Statistical Service, statistics derived from the Continuous Household Labour Force Survey indicated that the unemployment rate among…

The Employers Survey, the findings of which were released recently, will aid Barbados in its quest to effectively anticipate skills needs. Labour Minister, Colin Jordan, pointed this out yesterday as he addressed a brief ceremony prior to the presentation of findings on the survey that was conducted in conjunction with…