Around 5,000 jobs lost in seven months – T&T Minister

(Trinidad Guardian) Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus said yesterday she suspected that over 5,000 people have lost their jobs in the last seven months as T&T continues to go through economic challenges.

“I will give you what my suspicions are in terms of the unemployed from September to now. I suspect they may be in the vicinity of 5,000 or a little beyond that,” Baptiste-Primus told reporters at yesterday’s post-Cabinet media briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair.

Although the Central Statistical Office should be the agency to provide data of the unemployment rate, Baptiste-Primus gave an approximation of those terminated and assured that a new mechanism was being put in place to capture precise figures on the number of people who were retrenched recently.