Young Barbadians shun trade work, straining labour supply

Barbados is facing a construction labour crisis that pay alone can’t fix, says Henderson Eastmond, executive director of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council.

Despite rising demand and market-driven salary increases, young Bajans continue to turn away from the trades, often citing the physical demands of the work. 

Eastmond argues that deeper cultural attitudes and an education system that long sidelined vocational training have also contributed to the decline.

Speaking at a media briefing at Sky Mall, Haggatt Hall, on Wednesday, Eastmond warned that the country’s reliance on foreign labour is growing again, as local interest in construction jobs remains low. 

“For a long time, I believe we had Bajans not working in construction. That gap was filled by Guyanese,” he said. “With the advent of the oil find and the economic transformation taking place again, a lot of Guyanese have gone back home, and construction is expanding now.”

He dismissed the idea that better pay alone could reverse the trend. “Nobody [is] going to pay a mason $1 000 a day—you know that,” Eastmond said. “It would [have] to be increased astronomically. And if the pay increases astronomically, you know the cost of building and everything could go up, so you can’t get work. It’s driven by market forces.”

Eastmond pointed to deeper cultural and systemic factors behind the shortage, arguing that vocational training has long been undervalued in Barbados’ education system. 

“Barbados made a mistake in putting academia up front and putting technical and vocational subjects on the back burner,” he said, referencing a speaker at a recent graduation ceremony for the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology. “That’s a historical and colonial thing; we inherited a system where the ruling class didn’t want innovators, they wanted workers.”

He warned that this legacy has shaped public perception, with trades like masonry and tiling seen as undesirable despite offering decent incomes. 

“Bajans never did really [like] work in the construction process. Just how they move off from the cane field. They move away from construction. They see that as hard work,” Eastmond said.

Generational attitudes have compounded the problem. 

“Young people taste a good life in this country. As they begin to work their expectations are great. They want a car, they want to travel. They call it Generation Z. They really don’t want to work for nobody,” he argued.

The Government’s Construction Gateway Programme, designed to address the shortage by offering 12 to 16 weeks of free training, has struggled to attract committed candidates.

“A lot of people doing that training are people that want to help themselves, not [people who are willing] to go and work full-time in construction. We found that. It’s free training, but a lot of youngsters really ain’t interested in that training,” Eastmond admitted.

He cautioned that the shortage has left the industry exposed, with private contractors increasingly turning to foreign labour to meet demand. 

“When you ain’t got the labour force to do the work, the private sector can bring them from somewhere else,” he said. “When the private sector bring them from somewhere else now . . . [it] can change the demographics of the country and then people (Bajans) will look on [and complain] about how they (non-nationals) are getting through.”

Eastmond argued that the solution lies not only in reforming education but in reimagining the economy itself. 

“We have to look towards diversifying the economy,” he said, pointing to the popularity of tech-based jobs at companies like KM2. “The money might not be great, but they are down there. But that’s not plantation work or hard labour work, you’re sitting down and you’re dealing with computers.”

While welcoming the gradual expansion of vocational qualifications in secondary schools, Eastmond said Barbados must also embrace new industries and technologies to rebalance the labour market. “Nowadays, robots are building blocks, building buildings. They could use the technology. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” 

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb