More business leaders are speaking out about their struggle with competing organisations poaching their staff. The trend is not new, but it is said to have risen sharply within the last few years as Jamaica continues to maintain historically low unemployment numbers that hover around 4.5 per cent.

However, both Sydney Thwaites, president of the Jamaica Manufacturing and Exporters Association, and Wayne Chen, CEO of the Jamaica Employers Federation, believe the issue is more nuanced.

The private sector leaders point out that while poaching could indeed be a growing issue, the real challenge for Jamaica is the overall loss of employees to migration or job hopping for better opportunities.

“I wouldn’t call it poaching, but I understand what they are saying. What we are really seeing is the natural flow of a job market where workers move based on wages, conditions, and opportunities for growth. It’s a sign of a functioning market,” Chen told the Jamaica Observer.

“We haven’t really seen poaching as the major issue. What we do talk about is the overall loss of employees — whether that’s to migration or employees jumping from job to job for a little more money each time,” Thwaites explained, supporting Chen’s sentiment. “It’s a top-of-mind concern for many of our members.”

Their remarks follow concerns raised by heads of department stores Ammar’s and Lee’s Fifth Avenue just two months ago about a rise in employees leaving the retail clothing sector to take up jobs in the business process outsourcing industry, which on average allows workers to double their salaries.

More recently, Anthony Chang, head of Consolidated Baking Company, which trades as Purity, told shareholders during the company’s annual general meeting that its human resource department had to revise salaries and increase staff numbers to keep up with high turnover rates, particularly within its truck driver and salesmen positions.

“Many of you would know that all of us are competing for the same pool of people, and if you look at unemployment, it has gone down. Our HR team has done tremendous work acquiring, holding, and motivating people, let’s not diminish that; but we do have a lot of competition to get the right person,” Chang told shareholders, while admitting that his company, like others in the baked goods market, faces challenges with staff, particularly since employees are sometimes entrusted with cash after completing sales.

“It’s a real challenge to find the right staff, and if you find a good one, others may be after that person too,” he continued.

Now, James Rawle, chairman of Lasco Manufacturing and Lasco Distributors, has come forward with his own grievances.

“Just yesterday, we had to take off the gloves, because people are poaching our staff. Let’s be open, we have to keep our people. What that’s doing is driving up salary rates,” he said in response to queries from a shareholder at the company’s annual general meeting recently.

However, Rawle was quick to add that beyond the issue of staff poaching, Jamaica is not producing enough qualified or trainable talent to sustain the country’s growth.

“Probably it’s related to the fertility rate, I don’t know. One of the approaches we have is that we take on a number of apprentices, or what we call work experience people, and we nurture them over time,” he said.

A similar practice has been employed by Michael Ammar Jr, owner of Ammar’s Department Store.

“We’ll take them and train them. We’ll teach them how to read properly. We’ll teach them the skills. We’re not afraid to hire young, untrained people. That’s how we’ve built our sales force. Train them the right way; but it’s just hard to find anybody these days,” Ammar Jr lamented.

“A lot of them have taken up jobs in the BPO sector,” he added.

But as time passes, and those employees develop into skilled workers, the employers are faced with new challenges.

Luring staff away from competing organisations is not a new practice, but it is becoming a more regular practice as workforce shortages have worsened, according to business leaders. Today, job offers, particularly those made through job fairs, come with promises of higher wages, more extensive benefit packages, or sign-on bonuses.

With rampant inflation and rising interest rates, employed individuals are looking to capitalise on opportunities that not only offer higher wages but also better work-life balance.

“Look, people in the workforce will move back and forth based on wages, conditions, benefits, time spent, and personal satisfaction. The fact that people are moving around is a sign of a functioning market. If everybody was fixed in their jobs and things were static, that would be dysfunction,” Chen told Sunday Finance.

“So firms have to look at their own operations and see what terms and conditions of employment would make them an attractive place to work for existing workers and for new workers. That’s something firms do to compete all the time,” he said. “In other words, firms continuously train up their workers, look at compensation, benefits, time off, and family balance, and those firms tend to become places of choice to work.”

Chen reasoned that unlike previous generations who were more interested in securing jobs until retirement with “the gold watch and the pension,” younger generations are continuously looking for opportunities that suit their current needs and lifestyles.

“Those days are virtually behind us. Today, that employee may be in their late 20s and want more time off, they’ll move. They might say, ‘I want the time now when I’m young and frisky, so I can travel, go to the beach, and socialise with my friends. I’ll put the hard work years in my 30s or 40s.’ Those are the options that newer generations look at, unlike my generation,” he said, noting the flexibility in the job market, especially with remote work.

Further, he added that as a developing country, Jamaica ranks among the top countries globally for brain drain. The issue extends beyond the business sector, affecting health care and education, where there is a shortage of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers.

“The only solution for the short term has to be to open up the job market in Jamaica to players from overseas,” Chen said, drawing on the success of many local manufacturing firms that have recruited high-skilled workers from within Caricom and internationally.

Lasco Distributors, for example, hired Trinidadian John DeSilva in 2021, closing the vacancy for managing director that had been open for nearly two years.

“There have been people I know personally who have come from Switzerland, Ireland, the UK, and the US to work in local firms. More recently, I see people from Asia coming to work in Jamaica. So it’s no coincidence that the countries in the Western Hemisphere and around the world that are the most prosperous are also the ones with the most open job markets,” Chen said.