{"id":10092,"date":"2017-12-11T11:19:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T15:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=10092"},"modified":"2017-12-11T11:19:58","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T15:19:58","slug":"st-lucia-records-drop-in-unemployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/st-lucia-records-drop-in-unemployment\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Lucia records drop in unemployment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prime Minister Allen Chastanet, has hailed a drop in the country\u2019s unemployment figures, declaring that his administration is very excited about the development.<\/p>

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However\u00a0 Chastanet told reporters that there is a difference between progress and success.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I say we are making progress, that does not in any way say that we are successful,\u201d Chastanet explained.<\/p>

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He described the recent economic figures as indicating that progress is being made.<\/p>

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\u201cBut by no means is my administration standing up and down shouting that we are successful,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

Figures released last month by the Central Statistics Department, showed that unemployment went from 20.8 percent in the second quarter of 2017 to 16.8 percent in the third quarter \u2013 a four percent drop.<\/p>

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About 5,000 new jobs were created in the third quarter of this year, according to the figures.<\/p>\n

However, Chastanet lamented that the percentage drop for youth unemployment is not as significant.<\/p>

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He explained that the government is currently coming up with a number of programmes that will assist younger people.<\/p>

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\u201cThe apprenticeship programme that we are doing \u2013 getting young people involved in call centres, the work we are doing in agriculture \u2013 and I think you are going to see a substantial amount of empowerment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were in Mexico there was something I saw that I loved \u2013 basically it was an App that younger people can get, they would go on the piece of land that they have\u00a0and the App would tell them through a satellite reading what that land was suitable for,\u201d the Prime Minister told reporters.<\/p>\n

He disclosed that the App also supplied information in relation to yields and here supplies could be obtained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am working with the development bank on several projects \u2013 one is the Village Tourism which is to put a support mechanism in so people can open small guest houses, small shops and also vendors \u2013 we are looking to create a\u00a0 whole system that would create more entrepreneurs in our society, using tourism as a vehicle for that,\u201d Chastanet, who is a former Tourism Minister observed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing the same thing in agriculture where we are now going to be issuing\u00a0 contracts to people so that\u00a0 they no longer have to guess what they have to grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will know what they have to grow, what price they are going to get \u2013 the Extension Officers will now focus on them in terms of helping them improve their overall skill sets. Those are again things that will be targeted at the young people in our society,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister also spoke of a \u2018revolution\u2019 in education.<\/p>\n

He asserted that it must be accepted that the current education system is not delivering to the public and therefore not making a significant contribution to economic growth of Saint Lucia.<\/p>\n

Chastanet spoke of the need to re-tool the nation\u2019s teachers as part of the process of change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are seeing some of the more successful countries in the world, the common practice is that everybody is upgrading their teachers, so\u00a0 the idea that a teacher could come right out of high school and do two years of\u00a0 training at Sir Arthur (Lewis Community College) and become a certified teacher is not a high enough standard. We need to raise the standard of our teachers,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a bad curriculum but great teachers, I think you can be very successful. But if you have a great curriculum and bad teachers, I don\u2019t think you are going to be successful,\u201d Chastanet said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Allen Chastanet, has hailed a drop in the country\u2019s unemployment figures, declaring that his administration is very excited about the development. However\u00a0 Chastanet told reporters that there is a difference between progress and success. \u201cWhen I say we are making progress, that does not in any way say that we are successful,\u201d Chastanet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-regional"],"yoast_head":"\nSt. Lucia records drop in unemployment - Antigua News Room<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/st-lucia-records-drop-in-unemployment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"St. Lucia records drop in unemployment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Prime Minister Allen Chastanet, has hailed a drop in the country\u2019s unemployment figures, declaring that his administration is very excited about the development. 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