The Tribune

By TANEKA THOMPSON

Tribune News Editor

tmthompson@tribunemedia.net

FOR the past two years, Celeste Neymour has been looking for work, desperate to secure employment so that she can provide for her two young daughters.

Ms Neymour, 26, said she has routinely pounded the pavement, filling out applications and dropping off resumes all over the island. Despite her perseverance, she has had no luck.

She is one of the more than 30,000 people in this country who are unemployed and face bleak job prospects.

“It’s very hard and it’s a struggle because I’m a single parent, unemployed, and I’ve been living home with my family now going on two years,” she told The Tribune during a recent interview outside her home in the Bains and Grants Town constituency.

“I have two kids and it’s a serious struggle.”

While looking for full-time employment, Ms Neymour said she makes money styling hair for friends. She also gets by with the help of family and an acquaintance from church.

“A lot of people looking for work but a lot of jobs ain’t out there,” she lamented.

“They just said they had 22,000 jobs the other day – I ain’t see nobody get hired, especially in this area.”

The most recent figures from the Department of Statistics show that 20,170 jobs have been added to the economy since May 2012. However the latest data also shows that the country’s unemployment rate is a staggering 14.8 per cent, with 30,375 people listed as unemployed.

Depressed

Ms Neymour said her fruitless job search has made her discouraged and depressed. She knows that if she finds a job it will likely pay minimum wage, hardly enough to support her two daughters. Still she said she is so desperate she will work for “anything.”

“It has me thinking if I do go out there and I do get a job, that (it isn’t going) to pay enough for me to maintain my girls,” she lamented. “One goes to school and one needs to be in nursery. So the time I work a whole week, that’s money to deal with them, that ain’t nothing to really supply me.

“But right now I would basically work for anything. If I could find a job, I would work for $210, $250 or $300. That’s better than nothing, I just need a job, but right now I can’t find no job.”

In spite of the setbacks she has endured thus far, Ms Neymour remains upbeat, telling The Tribune that she will continue looking for employment and “hope and pray” that things work out.

However, she had scathing criticism for politicians, saying if they knew how hard it was for people in her community their views would change.

“If they lived where we live and deal with what we have to deal with on a daily basis, their outlook on things would be really different – totally different. Who is our MP for this area?”

When told that her MP is National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage, she replied: “How he look? I never even see him. All my life I’ve been living through Comfort Street, I’ve never seen Perry (Christie), I’ve never seen Nottage, so what’s the purpose of them having this area if they ain’t coming around door-to-door? I hear they having election next year, you think you will have my vote and you ain’t help me and my two children? They can’t get nothing from me.”

Father of one Arthur Cambridge is in a similar position.

He has been out of work since mega resort Baha Mar collapsed last summer. He told The Tribune he worked as an electrician on the construction site for various sub-contractors.

Since then he said has been looking for a job in a related field, but work is not plentiful in the construction industry.

“The people who have the money they really holding down on what they got, so (nothing is happening) right now – no jobs, opportunities for people to help themselves,” the 31 year old said. “I just think it’s selfish in a way because you know money out there but people just holding it down.”

Mr Cambridge is also a resident of Bains and Grants Town. He thinks people in the area face a stigma that they do not want to work, when in reality they struggle for jobs.

“Even in this community here, people like to work but just looking at us . . .people will think you don’t have that work stability,” he said. “From June of last year I was really struggling. I’m just hanging on by faith right now. I’ve been told don’t put your hopes in the government and I was wondering why people would indicate certain things like that, but if you can’t depend on the government that means you can’t depend on anyone.”

Another area resident Tequira Rahming, 33, is a former discouraged worker who has not had a steady job in seven years. She told The Tribune she resumed her job search more than a year ago.

She said she previously worked in the construction field “but anything that could give me a nine-to-five and make sure my three kids straight, pay my bills and help me stay afloat will do just fine.”

She, like Ms Neymour, expressed frustration with applying for multiple jobs and not hearing anything back.

“I’ve been looking now for the past year or two,” Ms Rahming told The Tribune. “You got to get a reference, you got to get a police record, pictures taken and all this but when you give these things to the people, they never call you back – these things cost money - so I just need a lil’ push, a lil’ start.”

Her disappointing job search has left her feeling like prospective employers are “just looking past me.”

Without a steady pay cheque, she said she gets by on winnings from web shops.

“But I’m trying,” she told The Tribune. “For the sake of my three kids, I’m trying. They don’t want you rob and all that foolishness, I trying.”