St Lucia is suffering from massive unemployment crisis: PM Allen Chastanet

During a press briefing on the IMF-World Bank annual meeting, Prime Minister of St Lucia Allen Chastanet admitted that the country is suffering from enormous unemployment crisis due to the closure of the tourism sector.

Chastanet has been vocal about the financial conditions of the country, earlier this month he admitted that St Lucia is 'broke' and cannot afford another lockdown despite the surge in coronavirus cases.

He informed that while the drop witnessed in Saint Lucia's unemployment was welcomed, calculations insinuate that unemployment, as at early June 2020 went back up to 21.0%, originally due to the consequences of COVID-19.

Prime Minister added that country's economy mainly rely's on the construction of hotels and tourism as a whole. He asserted that the COVID-19 crisis destructed the sectors resulting in the unemployment of many individuals.

However, he claimed that the government had been providing necessitated social and economic relief measures to assist the people during the pandemic.

"Saint Lucia also underwent a decline in unemployment throughout the period 2017 to 2019, which was prompted by advancements in the tourism and construction sector," Chastanet declared.

Furthermore, Allen Chastanet also insisted that prior to the coronavirus crisis, the country recorded real growth of 1.7 percent in 2019 with expectations of an additional rise of 3 to 4 percent in 2020.

Besides this, Chastanet asserted that his government have been working upon a multiplicity of polices as a response to control the impact of the crisis and provide assistance to the most vulnerable groups of the country.

He announced that the government has already announced a series of measures which includes the Social Stabilization Programme declared on 8 April 2020. This initiative emphasizes on providing income support, tax reliefs and other social support measures to assist households and businesses widely affected by the pandemic.