The Tribune

WITH the $200m overhaul of Coco Cay nearing completion, executives from Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines were in the capital yesterday for the cruise line’s third job fair since November.

From as early as 8.30am, dozens of applicants started to arrive at the National Training Agency’s Gladstone Road office, hoping to secure employment aboard one of RCCL’s ships or as one of the scores of skilled workers being sought to man the new Coco Cay.

While at RCCL’s job fair yesterday, The Tribune spoke with several job seekers to gauge the country’s current labour climate.

Two of those applicants, Klee Allance, a first-time father trying to provide for a newborn, and Cason Adderley, a recently laid-off general worker, said the fair provided people with an opportunity to change their lives.

Mr Allance, who said he was fed-up with working odd jobs just to survive, applied to work as bar attendant at Coco Cay, while Mr Adderley, a native of Exuma, submitted documents for a lifeguard post.

The two men insisted the life of the young unemployed Bahamian male was more complicated than many care to understand.

“It is be rough, you know,” Mr Allance told The Tribune. “I ain’t trying to get in no problems. When it like that, ain’t much options. Trouble easy to get into when you willing to do whatever it takes to feed your people (sic).”

Contrasting the limited job market with the life of people willing to work odd jobs, he added: “When you have a regular nine to five, you have a system and things flow with an order.

“When you have to hustle, it can go wrong really quick because you have to start the day open to doing whatever it takes. Everything is a possibility. You know, I want to do things the right way, but that’s hard because the money hard to come by.

“I doing good, but it would be better with a job,” he said.

Mr Adderley on the other hand said he had now grown tired of depending on those closest to him for monetary support.

“It’s not that they don’t want help,” he asserted. “I just want be a man about things, man. It don’t feel right asking and asking and asking. You want work for what you get man. That’s why I’m here. I’ll be so happy if I get hired.”

He added: “First of all, I’ll be in a different environment where I have sure job. Where I’ll be working and making my own money.

“I could then do for my people. I really want to be in a position to do that.”

In an interview with The Tribune, RCCL’s senior manager of talent attraction Cindy Williams-Johnson said recruiting teams had zeroed in the islands of The Bahamas as a “critical source” in the cruise line’s quest to grow and develop its workforce.

She said given the ongoing expansion at Coco Cay, and the “ever-growing collaboration” between The Bahamas as a tourism destination and RCCL as a cruise line, recruiters viewed the country as “practical” to source “as much local talent as possible.”

Mrs Williams-Johnson said RCCL, as a global brand dedicated to providing the best product possible, operates with the belief that a product is only as good as the talent that presents it, adding that the incorporation of Bahamians on board its ships and in its new “Perfect Day at Coco Cay” campaign, has proven to be a productive partnership.

“When we moved into this venture at Coco Cay we saw it as practical to reach out to the Bahamian government and all of the other relevant agencies and say, we want our talent to be gathered here,” she said.

“What you see here today is just a continuation of that process.

“We have a variety of positions that are open and that is what we are really excited about. We are not only hiring for just our ships. We are also hiring for Coco Cay.”

Mrs Williams-Johnson continued: “But we aren’t limiting ourselves. Yes, our target is 100 between our ships and Coco Cay, but we are opened to hiring whomever we come across that fit our plans.”

She said RCCL was expanding “across the board,” explaining that in addition to entry level positions such as bar servers, restaurant attendants and cleaners; the company is also interested in adding to its ranks of skilled positions: butchers, bakers and pastry cooks in addition to a host of opportunities connected with the ship’s vast entertainment offerings from sound and light technicians to technical broadcast staff and entertainers.

RCCL has partnered directly with the Department of Labour and the National Training Agency (NTA) to hire has many as 200 Bahamians to aid in its global expansion.

Candidates, once hired, will undergo specific training programmes organised by RCCL.

Once deployed, those workers contracted will either work a four-week on, one-week off schedule at Coco Cay, or a standard ship cycle on board one of RCCL’s ships.

On hand for yesterday’s fair was NTA Executive Director Gadville McDonald, who implored young Bahamians to come out “and make their mark’.

He told The Tribune that while NTA continues to work to “strategically display” its 900 annual trainees, the agency does recognise the need to present “standout opportunities” to the wider public.

“This is one of those opportunities where a company has come in and said give us your best and brightest. We have done that. But in line with who we are, we thought it necessary to go back to the public and encourage more Bahamians, our young men and woman in particular, to come out and see what is available to them,” McDonald said.

“We encourage young people on a daily basis to come out and connect with us. We develop them, often times in line with specific job skills, and other times in collaboration with companies eager to expand their respective workforce.

“Listen, we know that in the climate we are in right now, when you see a job there are often scores of persons after them. That’s why we tell those young persons we come into contact with to stay ready and be prepared.”