For over a year, my friend\u2019s son has been waking up to the same unsettling routine: tailor his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, modify the cover letter, submit the applications, keep checking for a response, and continue to wait with fading hope. Mind you, the bright young Jamaican has done everything he has been told by society and his nurturing parents to do. He studied hard, earned his engineering degree and graduated ready to help build Jamaica. Yet today he is still unemployed. This energetic, eager and well-trained engineer is one of 21,000 youth estimated to be jobless and locked outside the formal economy. According to STATIN\u2019s latest numbers to June, youth unemployment climbed to 11.7 per cent in April, up from 10.1 per cent a year prior. Young people are now three times more likely than the average Jamaican to be unemployed.<\/p>\n
So, his story is not unusual, and neither is the advice he keeps getting: \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t he just start a business?\u201d<\/p>\n
Let me declare my bias. As an entrepreneur, I have spent nearly 20 years training upcoming entrepreneurs, designing entrepreneurship programmes and writing about small business. I\u2019m deeply passionate about this field. Therefore, it may surprise you to hear me say this unapologetically: stop telling unemployed graduates to start a business. Yes, entrepreneurship can be a powerful path, but it is not a parachute or catch all. The tendency to prescribe it as the cure or antidote for graduate unemployment is like telling a drowning man to build a boat.<\/p>\n
Here is why it\u2019s not the right answer at this time:<\/p>\n
1.\tThe country needs him as an engineer. Full stop! \u2013 We\u2019re rebuilding roads, homes, power lines and public and private buildings after the strongest hurricane ever hit our shores. Indeed, in public pronouncement after pronouncement, the Government has appealed to Jamaicans overseas to come home and help rebuild. Yet the Jamaicans who never left, and are ready, willing \u2013 and even desperate to do exactly that, can\u2019t find a way in. How can young engineers sit at home while we lament technical skills gaps and talk about importing labour? As old people woulda seh, \u201cwanti wanti cyaan getti, an\u2019 getti getti nuh want it.\u201d The talent is already here. We need a bridge between that talent and the work.<\/p>\n
2.\tEvery degree is not a business plan \u2013 My friend\u2019s son did not spend years at university doing courses like Thermodynamics and Structural Mechanics, Statics and Strength of Materials, Chemistry for Engineers, the Engineering Profession, Technical Writing, or Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer to become an accountant, marketer and salesman overnight. Like many other technically skilled youth, he may likely have no product idea, or desire to run a company, much less access to capital. Years ago, I wrote in this column that the right attitudes and soft skills matter far more in entrepreneurship than any technical training. Pushing someone into business without the hunger or the preparation is the fastest road to failure, debt and disillusionment.<\/p>\n
3.\tDesperation is not a strategy \u2013 I\u2019ve said this before, necessity-based entrepreneurship, which is launching a business because there is no other option, is a flawed approach. The data show that it is opportunity based entrepreneurship that has the highest likelihood of success. Many businesses still take years rather than months, to generate substantial profits. A graduate with bills due can ill afford to wait for extended period to pay himself from the business, if at all.<\/p>\n
4.\tMoney just got more expensive \u2013 Just last week, on September 29, the Bank of Jamaica raised its policy rate by 50 basis points to 6.0 per cent, its first increase since 2022, as inflation climbed to 7.9 per cent. Conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war continue to drive up the cost of fuel, food, travel & logistics and raw materials, etc. In simple terms that means more expensive loans, thinner margins and customers with less to spend. These are hardly the conditions to launch an untested venture, let alone using borrowed money.<\/p>\n
5.\tThe economy is still bleeding \u2013 Nearly a year after catastrophic Hurricane Melissa, the costliest storm in our history which caused damage exceeding 50 per cent of our GDP, many firms are still repairing balance sheets and holding back on hiring. Meanwhile, the business process outsourcing sector, a long a safety net for graduates, has shrunk from about 62,000 jobs to roughly 50,000 in two years by Government\u2019s count, with local spending down US$220 million in a single year. Even a graduate who never wanted a call centre job feels that loss through weaker demand and fiercer competition for every opening.<\/p>\n
Now let\u2019s go back to that missing bridge I mentioned earlier, because some solutions are hiding in plain sight and are well within our reach. First, reconstruction contracts funded by taxpayers should require contractors to hire and mentor a quota of local graduate engineers and technicians. Second, the Government should offer targeted tax incentives to engineering, manufacturing and technology firms that create structured entry-level roles. Third, the public and private sectors should build effective placement programmes that match graduates with industries reporting skills shortages \u2013 and certainly before anyone signs off on importing labour.<\/p>\n
For the avoidance of doubt, no one is saying young people should not start businesses. Many of them should, and I will keep supporting the ecosystem that helps them do it. But entrepreneurship works best as a choice, not last resort, that is made with eyes open, capital in hand and the viable opportunity in view. It should never be a consolation prize handed out because the job market failed them.<\/p>\n
Graduates don\u2019t need vague lectures about becoming their own boss in this context. They need a reasonable chance to do what they are trained for, and to earn a living, and help rebuild Jamaica. <\/p>\n
One love,<\/p>\n
Yaneek Page is the program lead for Market Entry USA and a certified trainer in Entrepreneurship <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For over a year, my friend\u2019s son has been waking up to the same unsettling routine: tailor his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[138,336,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-620426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}