By Admin. Updated 3:14 p.m. Tuesday, May 17, 2022, Atlantic Standard Time (GMT-4).
To date, approximately 400 persons have already gained full time employment with Royal Caribbean Cruises through the recruitment fair hosted at Beachcombers from May 13-15, 2022, tourism minister Carlos James said.
“We have already filled part of the quota which is 400 persons. We have another 1,600 people to go in terms of the recruitment,” Mr. James said at a press conference on Tuesday, to update the nation of tourism-related developments.
Earlier in May, the Ministry of Tourism announced that the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) had signed a memorandum of understanding with Royal Caribbean Cruises for the recruitment of up to 2,000 persons from SVG.
According to reports, hundreds of people applied, during the May 13-15 recruitment fair, and four hundred were successful.
Mr. James said the successful applicants were “employed on the spot.”
“They met all the requirements and were offered a space by the Royal Caribbean team to go off on a vessel, hopefully during the start of the upcoming season,” Mr. James added.
He said: “the recruitment drive was fast track from the regular employment process that usually takes place with Royal Caribbean. Successful applicants were interviewed, pre screened by a medical team on spot and the job offer was presented to them once the necessary background checks were completed”.
“And those new employees will be entered into the Royal Caribbean system and will go off in the upcoming season,” Mr. James added.
The move came as the cruise industry is rebounding from setbacks it suffered due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, Mr. James said Royal Caribbean will facilitate training of some of the individuals that have been recruited.
“Part of the arrangement is that Royal Caribbean will facilitate training for a number of persons who are being recruited for this exercise,” Mr. James said.
“We do have significant shortage of trained persons within the tourism sector. It continues to be a challenge, not just in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines but across the EC (Eastern Caribbean) islands, and having as much as 2,000 persons going off to Royal Caribbean to take up different speciality positions and entry-level positions and being able to be afforded the opportunity for training, I think is also a significant part of this exercise,” Mr. James said.
Mr. James said that Royal Caribbean will be back in a few weeks to recommence recruitment.
By the end of June into early July, they will return into St. Vincent and the Grenadines and we will continue to have a centralized location for recruitment in Kingstown, somewhere in the vicinity of Kingstown and the Villa area, but we intend to extend those two locations to the northeastern and northwestern parts of St. Vincent.
He said the recruitment drive will be extended to the Red and Orange volcanic zones to make it easier for persons in those volcano affected communities to apply.
He said that with the long extended lines seen at Beachcombers where the May 13-15 recruitment took place, a decision has been taken to identify areas in the northeast and northwest to “bring the recruitment drive to those areas”.
“We intend to do this in a few weeks, hopefully by the end of June, maybe early July, we will see the recruitment excercie with Royal Caribbean here again in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,” he said.
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