By Sir Ronald Sanders
When the door to migration narrows, the long-standing mismatch between education and economic absorption is no longer abstract; a country’s true immigration policy becomes domestic — how many jobs it can create, and how quickly it can match people to them.
On January 14, 2026, the United States Department of State announced a policy shift with direct economic consequences: effective January 21, it paused the issuance of immigrant visas for nationals of 75 countries deemed to be at “high risk of public benefits usage.” Eleven of the fourteen independent CARICOM countries are included in that list, which may yet expand.
This was not framed as a temporary administrative adjustment. It signals a doctrinal shift: the United States will tighten selection toward migrants it actively seeks and will screen harder for those it fears may impose fiscal or social costs.
For decades, outward migration absorbed part of the Caribbean’s internal economic pressure — unemployment, underemployment, low wages, limited domestic markets, and frustrated professionals. As that outlet narrows, the pressure will intensify at home.
This does not mean migration has ended, but it does mean that the long-standing assumption that migration will always remain available as a safety valve is no longer reliable. That illusion has been eroding globally for years.
As migration tightens, more people — including skilled graduates — will have to stay in their home countries. That reality turns attention to an issue Caribbean states have too often postponed: whether their education output aligns with their development needs. Even in the three CARICOM countries not yet affected, education should now be regarded as an integral part of economic policy.
The response required now is structural. Governments, the private sector, and trade unions in each CARICOM country should waste no time in confronting a shared responsibility: to create and sustain conditions in which enterprise expands fast enough to absorb both skilled and unskilled labour.
This requires political coordination at the highest level. Each country should adopt a national development strategy that states clearly where it intends to be in ten years and use it as a governing instrument. That strategy should be reviewed every two years to adjust priorities and methods as conditions change, and it should explicitly guide budget allocations, public investment, skills formation, and regulatory reform. Without such a framework, education systems will continue to produce graduates without clear economic pathways, and governments will continue to respond to unemployment after the fact rather than prevent it by design.
This is not central planning; it is coordination — the difference between drifting and choosing a direction.
A credible national strategy provides a road map for institutions — especially universities and training institutes — to align their work with national priorities. It clarifies how many engineers, technicians, nurses, teachers, digital specialists, construction supervisors, energy professionals, agro-processing workers, and specialist lawyers and doctors the economy will require. It allows teaching institutions to shape curricula accordingly — encouraging study and research in priority areas while placing less emphasis on fields that play a smaller role in the agreed national development plan.
This is not an argument against broad education or intellectual freedom. It is an argument for a system that takes full account of the need for graduates to earn a living in their home economies.
The Caribbean’s challenge lies in remedying mismatch. Employers across the region report difficulty finding workers with appropriate skills, even as graduates struggle to find employment. Weak linkages among firms, universities, and training institutions compound the problem, leaving education and enterprise operating in parallel rather than in partnership.
Addressing this requires deliberate collaboration. Governments should convene sector-specific councils — in tourism, construction, logistics, health, agriculture, renewable energy, creative industries, and digital services — where employers, unions, and training institutions jointly define competencies, certification standards, and pathways from training to work. Trade unions have a vital role here, not only in defending wages and conditions, but in engaging seriously with productivity, skills upgrading, and enterprise sustainability.
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) must also be modernised. In too many societies, TVET is treated as a second choice rather than a respected route to skilled employment. That misjudgement carries a high price. Modern TVET systems — linked to employers and responsive to technological change — are essential to labour absorption at scale.
Education must also prepare people not only to seek jobs, but to create them. This does not mean everyone should become an entrepreneur. It means every economy needs a growing share of citizens who can build enterprises — particularly when traditional wage employment cannot absorb all who seek it. Training in finance, management, technology, and the disciplined use of digital tools, including artificial intelligence, can allow small firms to reach markets beyond national borders. In a digital economy, small states can export services and ideas without exporting people.
None of this will succeed if the wider economic environment remains hostile to enterprise. High energy costs, slow approvals, overlapping regulation, expensive logistics, and entrenched inefficiencies continue to inflate the cost of doing business in many Caribbean states. The economic cost of delay is consistently underestimated.
If unemployment remains high while migration outlets narrow, the consequences will not be patience. There will be rising poverty, higher crime, strained public finances, weakened investor confidence, and social fragmentation.
Responsibility for labour absorption must be operational. Governments must lower the cost of doing business decisively and remove regulatory bottlenecks that deter investment. The private sector, in turn, must commit capital, innovation, and managerial effort to domestic production rather than rely on protection, rent-seeking, or incentives alone. Trade unions have a central role in this compact: defending workers’ rights while engaging constructively on productivity, skills upgrading, and enterprise sustainability. Educational institutions must also be full partners — aligning curricula, research priorities, and certification with national development objectives and labour-market demand. Economic reform cannot be treated as a partisan contest or deferred without cost. When any actor withholds cooperation, society as a whole suffers.
There is only one viable response: build opportunities for investment and jobs at home — deliberately, collectively, and with shared purpose.
