VZCZCXRO7875
PP RUEHGR
DE RUEHWN #0654/01 1091401
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 191401Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY BRIDGETOWN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2299
INFO RUCNCOM/EC CARICOM COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRIDGETOWN 000654 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR ELAB ECON PREL PGOV KPAO SC XL
SUBJECT: ST. KITTS SUGAR TRANSITION - JOBS AVAILABLE, 
WORKERS AVAILABLE, WHAT'S THE CATCH? 
 
REF: A. 05 BRIDGETOWN 2490 
     ¶B. 05 BRIDGETOWN 785 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  According to the St. Kitts Sugar 
Transition Team, there are around 700 former sugar workers 
still unemployed and about 600 available hotel jobs.  (Note: 
St. Kitts ended its centuries-old sugar industry in 2005, 
after decades of financial losses at the state-run sugar 
company.  End Note.)  Most of the sugar workers, however, 
lack the qualifications and interpersonal skills to work in 
the tourism sector.  The workers want to preserve their rural 
lifestyle and the Transition Team may be overindulging them 
by trying to create agricultural jobs instead of retraining 
the workers for available hotel positions.  Tourism, not 
agriculture, drives the St. Kitts economy and creates most 
new jobs.  The Transition Team may have to take a harder line 
with the sugar workers and make it clear what they can 
(hospitality training) and cannot (secure agricultural 
employment) offer.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) Embassy's PAO invited Cornell University Professor 
Gary Fields, a renowned Labor and Development Economist, to 
Barbados to give a lecture and share his expertise with 
various groups.  As part of his visit, Dr. Fields 
participated in a March 22 conference call with members of 
the St. Kitts Sugar Transition Team and other interested 
parties in St. Kitts.  The two-hour discussion focused on the 
problems with retraining sugar workers for tourism jobs.  The 
Kittitian participants did not think such retraining would be 
possible, while Dr. Fields, drawing on his experience in 
other developing countries, encouraged the Kittitians to give 
it a try.  PAO, Pol/Econ, FCS, and USAID all participated on 
the USG side of the call. 
 
---------------------- 
Who Still Needs a Job? 
---------------------- 
 
¶3.  (U) Gordon Alert, head of the Sugar Transition Team, led 
the discussion on the St. Kitts side.  He said that of the 
original 1500 sugar workers, 300 were from Guyana and the 
Dominican Republic and had since returned to their home 
countries.  Of the remaining 1200, 200 retired and 230 have 
found new jobs, leaving 770 or so still unemployed.  Alert 
said the sugar factory workers and office staff had the 
easiest time finding new jobs while the agricultural workers 
had more difficulty. 
 
------------------- 
Where Are the Jobs? 
------------------- 
 
¶4.  (U) The Sugar Transition Team conducted a thorough study 
of the available jobs in St. Kitts in the tourism sector, 
coming up with a list of around 600 jobs.  In response to Dr. 
Fields's question on what jobs are available, Alert read the 
detailed list to the group during the conference call.  The 
vast majority of the jobs were "front of the house" jobs such 
as waiters/waitresses and desk clerks, meaning that the 
employee would interact face-to-face with hotel customers. 
Only a small number of jobs were "back of the house," such as 
cooks, cleaners, and landscapers.  (Note:  What the 
Transition Team failed to mention is that several new hotels 
and resorts are under construction, and the former sugar 
workers may be well-suited to jobs on those building sites. 
End Note.) 
 
-------------- 
Labor Mismatch 
-------------- 
 
¶5.  (U) The St. Kitts participants in the call repeatedly 
characterized Dr. Fields's assertion that the sugar workers 
should be retrained for hotel jobs as "simplistic."  They 
offered reasons such as the sugar workers' lack of education 
and poor aptitude for service jobs, their desire to stay in 
agricultural work, inadequate public transport between the 
hotels and villages, opposition to working shifts or late at 
night, and lack of adequate day care for working mothers. 
Dr. Fields pointed out that most of these problems (except 
for a low aptitude for service industry jobs) could be 
overcome.  He also argued that it would be easier to work 
through these issues than to create new agricultual 
enterprises and turn all the former sugar workers, who have 
been employees their entire lives, into entrepreneurs. 
 
---------------------- 
Transition Team's Plan 
---------------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) The Transition Team intends to take jobs to the 
 
BRIDGETOWN 00000654  002 OF 002 
 
 
workers instead of workers to the jobs.  This means creating 
agricultural employment instead of retraining workers to fill 
existing hotel jobs.  The Team plans to parcel out small 
plots of former cane fields for the sugar workers to grow 
food crops.  The workers will then, in theory, sell this food 
to hotels and cruise ships.  While an excellent idea, no 
organization exists to market and distribute the locally 
grown food.  In addition, the Team proposes to keep growing 
some cane to help retain topsoil.  This cane will be used to 
make ethanol for local use and possibly for export.  (Note: 
The high cost of sugar production could lead to prohibitively 
expensive ethanol.  St. Kitts also does not have the 
economies of scale to compete with sugar giants like Brazil 
in making ethanol.  End Note.) 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU) St. Kitts' "bring jobs to the workers" approach may 
run into problems.  The present and future of St. Kitts is in 
tourism and services.  The faster the labor force adapts to 
that reality, the stronger and more resilient the local 
economy will become.  That said, the Kittitians have a point 
that it is difficult to turn an uneducated, introverted, 
sugar worker into a bright, cheery, presentable resort 
employee up to a world-class standard of service.  The 
workers, however, may have no other choice but to try for 
service industry jobs once their severance pay runs out.  As 
Professor Fields observed during the call, "Economic 
desperation can be a powerful motivator." 
 
GILROY