Speaking at a recent stakeholder meeting to address concerns with the Labour Department, McLean said employers often look at the ‘semantics’ when trying not to hire locals for jobs advertised.

“Sometimes no matter how the person could be [qualified], they might say you have to have four years experience in such and such a field, the person may have three years nine months, they will point out that the BVIslander/Belonger does not have it,” McLean said.

She added that more things make it difficult to get a Belonger to fill a vacant position in the workforce.

McLean said the hesitancy to hire Virgin Islanders is present in both non-Belongers and Belongers who operate businesses in the territory.

“You might ask an employer and they say, ‘okay this BVIslander/Belonger lacking this and sometimes even the BVIslander/Belonger employers’. And I have to say to myself, ‘what does that speak to me as a BVIslander/Belonger and a proud BVIslander/Belonger?’,” McLean noted.

“You can try to do all the semantics they say are required, the person may have all the attributes, all the skills they state are required and when the person goes, it’s a problem. They may decide to hire this BVIslander/Belonger, but they still want the person on a work permit. Then we are going to have another pool of applicants. It is extremely difficult,” the Acting Labour Commissioner said.

Job advertised after the fact

McLean further said some of the employers in the territory often advertise jobs when they already have someone in mind for the post. Consequently, the advertisement is tailor-made for the person’s qualification and this often excludes a BVIslander who wishes to apply for the post. She added that when the Labour Department protests these actions, it becomes a big problem.

“If you are advertising something, you are advertising a position. That position really should identify who it is you want to hire. When you turn around and say you want to hire someone who is not a BVIslander/Belonger to fill that position, it exempts the BVIslander/Belonger because they may have seen that ad and because they did not meet the requirements, they did not apply for it. So, that is a shortfall,” McLean said.

Give locals a chance

She noted the Labour Department still has a mandate to find employment for BVIslanders and Mclean agreed with Minister of Labour and Immigration Vincent Wheatley’s statement that the BVI will not have locals to fill all available positions in the workforce but at least they need to be given a chance.

The Labour Department has been complaining about the difficulty the department faces in getting businesses to hire locals. In 2020, Wheatley had expressed that it was a challenge to place locals in jobs as businesses were intentionally failing to hire them.

Since then, Wheatley had maintained that too often businesses are not allowing BVIslanders to advance to the next level despite requisite qualifications but instead bring in expats. Wheatley said the practice is in all sectors and he believes businesses prefer to hire expats over locals from a cost-saving standpoint.

Last November, the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Immigration announced they would launch a ‘Job Board’ which will serve as a recruitment hub aligning BVIslanders with job opportunities.