In May 2026, the Caribbean Society for Human Resource Professionals (CSHRP) hosted its LOUD26 Conference in St Kitts and Nevis following the publication of its Pay Pulse Caribbean Salary Survey Report for 2025. A prominent theme at the conference centred on pay transparency and the benefits of increased compensation disclosures for employees and employers alike. The advantages of increased pay transparency are known intuitively — it reduces informational asymmetry within the labour market and enables both employers and employees to navigate the market with greater clarity and fairness.

This transparency ultimately contributes to more efficient, market-determined outcomes, ensuring compensation for labour reflects true market dynamics, while supporting economic stability. In this regard, CSHRP’s report has fostered greater openness around salary trends by analysing 137 roles spanning 34 industries, with data from 206 participating organisations including regional subsidiaries. In so doing, the report has proved to be a valuable resource in the four years of its publication by empowering organisations to make informed, data-driven decisions that attract, retain, and reward talent competitively.

CSHRP’s report signals the ideal future of compensation policy — greater transparency. In Jamaica, the government has taken the lead by publishing salary scales in full for all positions within the central Government establishment following its three-year Compensation Review Exercise, which concluded in 2025. Some reports since then have indicated the difficulty in talent retention for private entities as public sector salaries have become relatively more attractive. In response, some private employers have sought to offer more competitive compensation packages to the extent that specific in-demand positions are now worth multiple times their value relative to just a few years ago.

The increase in competition for labour is highlighted even further by Jamaica’s currently tight labour market and record-low unemployment levels. Approximately 50,000 persons are in Jamaica’s unemployed labour force – persons who are looking for a job but currently not working. This is different from those who are outside of the labour force totally — those persons are neither working nor looking for a job and amount to nearly 700,000.

The roughly 50,000 persons who are participating in the labour market but not working represents the current unemployment rate of 3.7 per cent. As Jamaica is considered to be at full employment, this cohort is defined as frictionally unemployed, meaning for the most part, they were unemployed during the Labour Force Survey’s (LFS) reference week because they were moving between jobs. This comes as employers are competing for a limited supply of labour that possesses the skills currently demanded by the market. The result has been upward pressure on compensation and increased employee leverage for certain positions.

Reconciling labour demand and supply in this way through healthy labour market competition has also enabled more accurate and optimal wage determination through real market forces. In other words, the incentive to underpay or offer salaries below market value has been diminished, at least for some positions even if this is not yet applicable for entire industries or sectors. While the government has influenced some labour market outcomes through its Compensation Review Exercise and the full publication of salaries, this represents only a first step towards total compensation transparency. Ultimately, the most efficient, market-determined compensation outcomes are best assisted by wider systems for encouraging pay transparency through policy or mandating it through legislation.

In July 2026, the UK Government launched a major consultation proposal requiring employers in England, Wales, and Scotland to publish salary information or ranges by making benchmark rates mandatory in job advertisements or have them provided in writing before an interview.

Companies are not legally forced to put salary ranges on every job post yet, though market pressure means most already do so voluntarily. In Jamaica’s private sector, this phenomenon is not yet widespread. Pay transparency in some respects has been present in Britain (and elsewhere) for several years, but this has largely been in response to reducing race and gender discrimination in job advertisements rather than ensuring greater economic efficiency. Jamaica may not necessarily share these societal dynamics to the same extent that requires greater pay transparency for this reason.

Nevertheless, with Jamaica’s small size, some compensation decisions have the potential to otherwise create industrial tension that may be difficult to overcome if pay transparency becomes mandatory. Some incumbents may also be hesitant to have the salaries for their posts disclosed, particularly if the procedure by which they were employed was not governed by a fully open process and in instances where recruitment was conducted across borders. The prevalence of using the strength of connections rather than true merit to obtain employment may also present another form of resistance to openness in compensation details. In small societies like Jamaica where degrees of separation among some segments of the population are limited, these effects may be amplified.

Despite these phenomena, greater pay transparency beyond mere encouragement and moral suasion can ultimately be a net positive for Jamaica. At least for some segments of the labour force. An argument could be reasonably made that increased pay transparency for the lowest paid jobs where competition is not as fierce, will not have any material impact on labour market outcomes and wage determination as the supply of available labour far exceeds the demand.

Jamaica also has a significant number of jobs that are valued below the country’s average per capita real value-added output, so greater pay transparency may not be necessary in these instances.

For positions with more specialised skill sets, however, where competition is naturally greater and the supply of labour is outstripped by the demand, pay transparency becomes more essential. Several factors must be considered as Jamaica plans to move to the next phase of its economic development, having achieved full employment. If the country aims to further shift its employment profile to higher value-added employment with the expectation that more jobs of that nature will become available through greater education and skills training and a deepening of economic complexity, it will need to more thoughtfully consider implementing pay transparency as a natural complement, given the increased competition for labour that would result.

Keenan Falconer is an economist with experience in Jamaica’s public and private sectors and the multilateral financing space.

Keenan Falconer Economist.