Barbados to cut more than 1,500 public sector jobs

In the next few weeks, at least 1,500 temporary public workers will be fired as Barbados government seeks to turn around an ailing economy while acknowledging that sending home one worker “is too many,” said Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.

In a radio and television broadcast to the nation on Sunday night Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said that the job cuts will affect workers in central government and government entities.

“We give the country the assurance that while we do not have the exact number because we are following the process, rather than arithmetical deductions, we know that it is unlikely to be more than 1,500 people over the course of the next few weeks. But, regrettably, one is too many,” she said while detailing a wide-ranging plan to cushion the fallout.

Prime Minister Mottley, whose Barbados Labour Party (BLP) came to power in the May general election this year, acknowledged that it was a painful exercise her administration has embarked upon but added that the layoffs would be underpinned by the last in, first out principle and workers are in line to receive full packages.

“There will be severance type packages available to persons, particularly the temporary persons, and more than 80 per cent are temporary. Two, that those severance type packages will also be buttressed by payment in lieu of notice.

“Three, that without prejudice to that, that in some instances that there is vacation pay due to officers at an individual level.”

Mottley told Barbadians that her Cabinet had also agreed to ensure that dislocated workers would go home with their payments in hand.

“None of us would feel good having to go home without knowing where money is coming from and who is going to help us tomorrow or to come back next week or next month begging for money. We have to do this properly,” Mottley said, conceding that the process would not be problem free.

“Will it be seamless and absolutely perfect? Probably not. I have been around long enough to know that mistakes are made, but what is important is that if mistakes are made and they are brought to our attention that we correct them as soon as possible.”

But, she told the nation that the government would be establishing a household mitigation unit to assist the retrenched workers.

“I will have five persons who will interact with all those who are being laid off to make sure there is a minimal standard of living below which no one in this country will fall,” Mottley said, adding that the government would also be partnering with the private sector, civil society, particularly the church to ensure minimal fallout.

Mottley said that the affected workers would be given priority when the government rolls out a project to digitise its vast records in January, among other things.

Mottley said that as part of her administrations attempt to modernise the public service, workers would receive option forms “asking persons to indicate what is their passion, what is their wish, would they like to be retrained in a particular area, if they want access to a quarter acre of land and if they want us to help them establish a greenhouse so that they can get in to some kind of farming. Are they interested in livestock farming?”

She said another initiative would be the amendment to the laws to establish what it calls an affirmative action programme to allow for up to 20 per cent of the value of Government’s goods and services to go to displaced workers.

Barbados recently entered into a US$290 million Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with the International Monetary Fund and Mottley told the nation that at least 99 per cent of the creditors have agreed to back the Government’s debt restructuring exercise.