Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

The quest for jobs is going to get harder. This is the point of the following news article; the regional forecast for the Latin American & Caribbean region is that economic conditions will be distressed even more in 2015.

All hands on deck!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean anticipates creating 2.2 million new jobs … despite those projected distressful conditions; see VIDEO below. The goal is to make the region “a better place to live, work and play”. So all the empowerments and remediation need to be applied now.

The quest to create these jobs will take 60% inspiration – new ideas – and 80% perspiration – hard-work and heavy-lifting. The math of this addition exceeds 100 percent. This is the key: winners give more than 100%. See story here:

Title: ILO report forecasts higher unemployment in Latin America, Caribbean in 2015
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – A new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) has found an “unusual pattern” in this year’s urban employment rate in Latin America and the Caribbean, which continued to fall despite warning signs of economic slowdown.

The ILO report titled “Labour Overview for Latin America and the Caribbean 2014,” noted that the region’s urban unemployment rate may reach 6.3 per cent in 2015, which means that there will be some 500,000 more without jobs.

“There are warning signs,” said Elizabeth Tinoco, the ILO’s regional director. “The concern is that we are creating fewer jobs despite unemployment remaining at a low level,” she added.

Although unemployment has not risen due to this slowdown in growth, there has been a sharp reduction of new jobs reflected in the employment rate, which fell by 0.4 percentage points to 55.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2014.

“This means that at least one million (fewer) jobs have been created,” Tinoco said.

The ILO said that this “scenario of uncertainty” comes after a decade in which the region enjoyed significant economic growth. The unemployment rate dipped to record lows and allowed for a higher quality of jobs.

The urban unemployment rate of young people dropped from 14.5 per cent to 14 per cent but still remains between 2 and 4 times higher than that for adults. What’s more, the unemployment rate for women is 30 per cent higher than that for men, and 47 per cent of urban workers work in the informal economy.

“Many people who temporarily left the workforce in 2014 will return to search for a job next year, together with young people entering the labour market. The region will have to create nearly 50 million jobs over the coming decade, just to offset demographic growth,” Tinoco said, adding “we are talking about almost 15 million people unemployed.

“So we have to face the huge challenge of rethinking strategies to push growth and a productive transformation of the economy to foster economic and social inclusion through the labour market,” Tinoco said.

The ILO is calling on countries in the region to prepare for the possibility of a labour market which has to take specific measures to stimulate employment and protect individual incomes.
Caribbean 360 – Online Regional News Source (Posted 12-15-2014; retrieved 12-16-2014) –
http://www.caribbean360.com/news/ilo-report-forecasts-higher-unemployment-latin-america-caribbean-2015

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society, starting with economic empowerment. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for many empowerments, such as the infrastructure of Self-Governing Entities (SGE), to allow for industrial developments in a controlled (bordered) environment. This creates the right climate, entrepreneurial spirit, and access to capital for job-creators to soar. The book starts with a focus on the community ethos of job-creators: protecting property (in this case intellectual property), bridging the digital divide, fostering genius and better managing negotiations.

This strategy is valid for urban areas, as SGE’s can avail the close proximity of a willing work force, and quickly deploy transportation options like electrified streetcars, light-rail, natural gas buses and other transit options.

In response to the dire predictions in the foregoing news article, the fear is that despite the love the Caribbean populations may have for their homeland and culture, they will leave to find work, when none is available locally. This is factual from the past. This actuality has been the “siren call” for this Go Lean book. The foreword of the book thusly states (Page 3):

Many people love their homelands and yet still begrudgingly leave; this is due mainly to the lack of economic opportunities. The Caribbean has tried, strenuously, over the decades, to diversify their economy away from the mono-industrial trappings of tourism, and yet tourism is still the primary driver of the economy. Prudence dictates that the Caribbean nations expand and optimize their tourism products, but also look for other opportunities for economic expansion. The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This book advocates that all Caribbean member-states (independent & dependent) lean-in to this plan for confederacy, collaboration and convention.

Populations leaving the islands create a whole new set of problems, for those leaving and those left behind. “The grass is not greener on the other side”; see the VIDEO below of European dire forecast for 2015. The Go Lean roadmap posits that it takes less effort to remediate Caribbean life than to thrive as an alien in some foreign land. This point has been frequently addressed in blog/commentaries, as sampled here:

Also consider what happens after the societal abandonment. There are less of the educated classes remaining in the region to execute effective and efficient administration of the economic, security and governing engines. The disposition goes from bad to worst. (Even the flight of non-educated classes has a devastating effect: less people to support the marketplaces). Alas, classic Anthropology provides a key assessment. This science maintains that when a community comes under assault the responding options are “fight or flight”. For the past 50 years, “flight” has been the default reaction. The Go Lean roadmap now proposes the alternative: “fight”. But this is not a “call to arms” or for a revolt against the governments, agencies or institutions of the Caribbean region, but rather a petition for a peaceful transition and optimization of the economic, security and governing engines in the region.

The fighting spirit being advocated here is the community ethos to protest against the status quo:

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”.

We need jobs in the region and we need them now! The Go Lean roadmap provides job-creating solutions; so now that the forecast is for more economic distress in 2015, the urging is to double-down on this roadmap.

The points of the arts and sciences of job creations were foremost in the consideration of this book. Early, this intent was pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14) with these statements of the need to remediate Caribbean communities:

xix.        Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xx.        Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxiv.        Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

xxv.        Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

xxvi.        Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, pre-fabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

The purpose of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap is to compose, communicate and compel economic, security and governing solutions for the Caribbean homeland. We want a better society than the past; and perhaps even better than the countries so many of our citizens flee to. (We also want our Diaspora to repatriate; to come back home).

How, what, when for the Go Lean roadmap to effect the region with the harvesting of new jobs? The book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact job empowerment in the region, member-states, cities and communities. Below is a sample:

Other subjects related to job empowerments have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

The purpose of this roadmap is to elevate Caribbean society, and create 2.2 million new jobs.

The Go Lean roadmap provides the turn-by-turn directions for accomplishing this goal for new jobs. Based on the foregoing article, we need to lean-in now, more than ever if we want to “prosper where we are planted” here in the Caribbean. While the future always has an amount of uncertainty, there are preparations that must always be made for seasonal change; a “winter” season is coming to the Caribbean; ignorance is no excuse.

A Bible proverb says to look to the “ants” (insect) for a lesson. They do not know exactly when the weather will change, so they forage in the summer to prepare food storehouses for the winter. These lowly creatures teach us so much:

Holman Christian Standard Bible – Proverbs 6:6
Go to the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise.

Now is not the time to be a slacker nor to flee. We must stand up and be counted, fight the good fight and elevate our community.  We too can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – VIDEO: Commission revises down economic forecast  – http://youtu.be/JJimIOHy2C0

The European Commission has projected weak economic growth for the rest of this year in the Eurozone.

Unveiling its autumn economic forecast on Tuesday, the EU’s executive said that the 18-nation bloc will only grow 0.8%, a forecast below what was estimated earlier in the year. Growth is expected to rise slowly in 2015

“There is no single, and no simple answer. The economic recovery is clearly struggling to gather momentum in much of Europe. We believe that it is essential that all levels of government assume their responsibility and mobilise both demand- and supply-side policies to boost growth and employment,” EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici said.

“Country-specific factors are contributing to the weakness of economic activity in the EU, and the euro area in particular. Such factors include the deep-seated structural problems that were already well-known before the crisis, the public and private debt overhang; ongoing financial fragmentation related to the sovereign debt crisis and unfinished and uncertain reform agenda in some of our member states,” Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness Jyrki Katainen stated.

According to the newly appointed commissioner, the EU sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukrainian conflict, and a weaker global economy, are damaging business confidence.

Eurozone leaders are relying on a 300 billion euro investment fund to kick-start economic recovery, after newly elected Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker promised to unveil the plan in December.

“Our first priority now is to boost investment, to kick-start growth, and sustain it over time. We will be working at full speed, under the coordination by Vice-President Katainen, to put in place the 300bn investment plan announced by President Juncker,” Moscovici said.

The EU’s unemployment rate is likely to fall to 10%, the Commission said. But as for the eurozone, it will be significantly higher.