Dear Editor,

Our children are tomorrow’s future, or so they say. Yet, day in day out we find many situations of unwilling individuals who wouldn’t spare a second to invest in this future. It is quite appalling.

It is a struggle faced by many Jamaican youth in society and that struggle is jobs. Year after year there are numerous job openings. However, what I have noticed over the years is that to get these jobs you need years of work experience and seemingly friends in high places. You could be so qualified for a job but you will never get it without either of the two.

For almost all job applications there is this two to six years’ work experience period which is required. Now I am confused, you spend all your days going to school getting good grades, just to get a job at the end of this period. Now, on work experience, as a young person who just graduated high school, or even university, when business owners or human resource department officers turn down an application due to lack of work experience, have they ever once thought that this individual is trying to get this job because they wish to acquire some? Have they ever thought that this individual could be a hard worker and spend a day or two to get them up to speed with the running of the organisation and they could make a great investment in the future? How are the youth to get work experience if employers refuse to give them the opportunity?

Also, this ‘friends in high places’ thing, or in Jamaican terms “links”, is another thing. I have observed in many instances where individuals are indeed qualified for the job, but the manager or whosoever just got a call from a longstanding colleague who required a favour of them hiring their child or a family member. In most instances the qualified person is not hired. The sad thing is this will always happen in this very unfair society in which we live.

The children are the future, they say; no, let’s rephrase that: we hand-pick our future because we are afraid to invest in our own.

Let us stop and observe for a minute the hundreds of thousands of children who are qualified for a job this summer but instead they will be at home wondering, hoping, praying that one of the 15-30 places they spent time writing detailed applications to will just take up the phone and call and give them some good news.

A B Foster

alexandrabryan278@gmail.com