The Jamaican population was less satisfied with their personal life than the average, according to Global Entrepreneur Monitor (GEM) report, for which University of Technology conducted the local research.

Jamaicans are the least satisfied about life within the Latin and Caribbean region, according to the Global Entrepreneur Monitor (GEM) report.

The report indicated that the island’s fairly strong entrepreneurial spirit remains shrouded in a lack of employment and a peddling to survive mentality. This results in dissatisfied entrepeneurs.

“Based on the findings, the Jamaican population was less satisfied with their personal life than the average. Jamaica registered the lowest score in the Latin and Caribbean Region,” stated the GEM report chapter on Jamaica conducted by local-based University of Technology.

The report defined well being as the manner in which people experience their lives and includes both emotional and cognitive judgments. The regional average was 0.29 but the island’s population scored negative 0.53.

The report also examined the well being scores for the early stage entrepreneurs and the established business owners (EB).

“Both reflected the lowest scores in the Latin and Caribbean Region,” it added explaining that the scores for Jamaican entrepreneurs were negative 42 for early stage and negative 44 for EB. All other regional countries scored positive numerics led by Panama and Peru.

“In Jamaica there are high levels of necessity based entrepreneurs many see entrepreneurship as a means of survival and a way to combat poverty,” it stated.

The island’s low well being scores reflected the low regional results in the Happiness Report 2013, a separate report published by the United Nations. In the 2013 World Happiness report Trinidad & Tobago was considered the happiest country in the Caribbean with a rank of 30, and Surinam also ranked higher (40) than Jamaica (75).

The GEM report released on Thursday indicated that Jamaican entrepreneurs hustle without a growth strategy.

The GEM study found that some 21 per cent of entrepreneurs surveyed in Jamaica expected to have no one employed in the business in five years, 18 per cent of the entrepreneurs believed that they would have at least two employees and 16 per cent believed that they would have five employees working in the business in five years.

It also showed that just 24.5 per cent of the population surveyed were employed by others in full-time work, with the self-employed often having creating jobs out of necessity