Trinidad and Tobago’s labour force participation rate (LFPR) should no longer be viewed simply as a labour market statistic, but as a key indicator of the country’s development, economist Prof Roger Hosein has said.
“It is an important development variable with implications for productive capacity, potential growth, fiscal sustainability, export diversification and foreign exchange earnings,” Hosein said.
The concern, he said, is not simply that labour force participation has declined, but that the trend coincides with weaker employment growth, shifts in the composition of work and continued reliance on the relatively capital-intensive energy sector for foreign exchange earnings.
