Ten of thousands of jobs are advertised each year in the Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman employment portal, but the agency has no power to reject ads that are written specifically to exclude certain candidates, lawmakers have heard.
The issue of the agency’s inability to turn down job ads that appear to be written to describe a specific candidate or existing holder of the job was highlighted in a report by the Office of the Auditor General, which was scrutinised by the Public Accounts Committee last week.
The report recommended that government should amend the Immigration Regulations to give WORC a mandate to reject job adverts with “unreasonable requirements”.
It noted that several stakeholders stated that some job ads included unnecessary qualification and experience requirements “that may discourage Caymanian applicants”. While WORC reviews and approves all adverts that appear on its portal, it cannot legally reject them.
“Therefore employers can legally get work permits for jobs that were advertised with unreasonable expectations in terms of qualifications and skills because Caymanians did not apply,” the report stated.
Under the Immigration Regulations, qualified Caymanians must be given preference over non-Caymanians who would require a work permit to be employed.
Rejecting work permits
Wesley Howell, chief officer in the Ministry of Labour, told legislators at the meeting that while WORC could not legally reject certain adverts, that did not mean that work permits or renewals were automatically issued in those instances.
He said in situations where it is obvious a job advert has been tailored to an individual and to exclude others who would be suitable for the position, WORC can take the “nuclear option” of rejecting the work-permit application and refunding the permit fee.
He said such refunds, given “for a variety of reasons, including folks not giving Caymanians who’ve applied a fair shake”, amount to an average of half-a-million dollars a month being returned to employers.
The auditor general, in the report, said WORC had informed her office that more than 18,000 work permits had been refused in the four years between 2019 and 2023, with a significant increase in those refusals in 2022 and 2023.
All employers, apart from government, are required to advertise through WORC in its job vacancy portal.
Amendments to regulations being considered
In its response to the audit report, the labour ministry indicated that a “realistic timeframe” to address amending regulations to enable WORC to reject certain adverts would be the fourth quarter of 2025.
Howell earlier in the meeting had stated that a similar timeline was in place for the national employment policy, which takes into consideration the timing of next year’s general election.
In the meantime, WORC is expanding its ‘labour demand section’, Howell said, whereby it will have individuals, or collaborate with individuals, who are “learned within particular sectors” and will be able to make informed determinations on whether an advertised position calls for specific qualifications and expertise. He gave the example of a job advert for a King’s Counsel within the legal fraternity, and having access to someone who can advise on whether a KC designation is necessary for a particular role.
Job ads written to exclude candidates were among among a number of barriers that the auditor’a report noted were standing in the way of Caymanians securing employment. Other obstacles include social issues, such as being unable to find affordable child care for single mothers; or having a learning disability, a criminal record, mental health problems or a drug addiction – none of which, the report noted, could WORC address on its own.
“Improving employment opportunities for Caymanians needs a holistic approach, and WORC cannot do it alone,” the report stated, adding that the agency needed to collaborate with the private and public sector, and that a national employment policy could assist with this.
At the same Public Accounts Committee meeting, lawmakers were informed that steps were being taken to draw up a national employment policy.
Jobs portal
The WORC jobs portal – through which employers can advertise jobs and pay fees, and jobseekers can register and apply for positions – has gone through a major overhaul since the original JobsCayman website was launched in May 2020. The first iteration proved to be difficult to use and was riddled with technical glitches.
That portal was retired earlier this year and replaced with a new user-friendly version, at a cost of $3 million.
The Office of the Auditor General noted in its report that the ministry had written off $1 million for the IT system used for the original JobsCayman site.
Howell, in response to questions from legislators, explained that an entirely new platform had been introduced to replace the JobsCayman portal, which was far more efficient and would require fewer resources to operate, thus freeing up some staff to take on other roles within WORC. The new system also integrated with the e-Gov system, enabling “one-stop-shopping”, he said.
He noted that WORC deals with at least 60,000 applications a year, each of which have financial transactions associated with them, generating an annual revenue of more than $110 million. Once additional “department-level revenue” is added, that figure increases to almost $140 million a year, he said.
“The $3 million spend, in context of a system that managed $140 million revenue last year, is in keeping with the work that’s necessary to ensure we have the auditing functions, we have the reporting functions, we have the data analytics all built in,” he said. “That’s part of why it’s not a straightforward, simple application process.
“We’re now building in the reports and other things. Hence, why the spend is a bit more. In the context of the work that is going through and the level of automation we’re building, I think that’s a reasonable spend.”
The director of WORC Jeremy Scott, who was also a witness at the committee meeting, told lawmakers that the new portal was working well, and the number of calls to the help centre for assistance in using the system had dropped significantly.
He noted that since the new portal was launched in late July, 211 new jobseekers had registered on the site.
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