NWDA must send suitable candidates for jobs

(CNS Business): There have been too many instances where candidates who are ill-equipped for the position are sent to the local businesses by the National Workforce Development Agency (NWDA), according to Chamber of Commerce President Johann Moxam. It’s important to ensure that suitably qualified are identified and then sent out to the job market, he told CNS Business. “We have to have people who are appropriately skilled or matched up before we send them out to the business community and there have been too many instances where that hasen’t been the case.”

Every Chamber member understands that it is important and also cheaper to hire a Caymanian because there isn’t the additional cost of a work permit, he noted. “But I can’t say that business are prepared to take on full time candidates that are not suitably qualified or workplace-ready,” he said. “It’s a cost to business that most just can’t afford. Although their intentions might be good and they want to help, it’s important that the NWDA and other agencies involved in labour and helping Caymanians find employment opportunities understand that it is better to send somebody that can be trained up as opposed to sending through a candidate that’s coming from a completely different discipline and unable to help that business in the short to medium term.”

Noting that the NWDA is currently going through significant administrative and management changes, Moxam said it would appear that the deputy chief officer from the ministry maintains operational supervision of the NWDA and the agency does not appear to have a director. Hopefully, he said, with the changes now taking place, they will sort out those issues “sooner rather than later”, in order to help the people and businesses that really need it

Tags: Johann Moxam, NWDA

Category: Employment, Local Business, Video