An understudy with a d average is no easier to train than a treestump

And if you do get one trained, we they done fine taking their new found knowledge to start their own gig.

Half the reason for an expat is attitude and willingness to work and honesty.

Sometime you’ve had a capable Bahamian who just won’t work, Branville is right.

SMH...that statement really should not be used to generalize ALL Bahamians.
I think this depends on the industry and HOW the employer is advertising. I know of several young Bahamians that are part-time in school and looking for landscaping and other side hustles. If you come with the mindset that "ain't no Bahamians want to do this anyways" then of course you won't even go looking in their direction. Put one of those job advertisements on instagram for a part-time gardener/handyman and I bet they will find young and idle Bahamians willing to do it. Half the time, the employers advertising in such an archaic way that they are not even connecting with the viable job seeker in the first place.

I watch Bahamians work alongside foreigners every day ……….. the foreigners generally have goals and dreams …………. the Bahamian generally lives day to day ……….. Motivation is key difference.

I seriously doubt Bahamians are complaining about not having understudy opportunities with the Haitian gardener or the Filipino maid. These are complaints from persons with tertiary degrees who are overlooked for higher paying jobs and managerial positions. These are persons who are more than likely asked to transfer their knowledge to the foreign boss

transfer their knowledge to a foreign boss, ha ha ha ha, lol , lol, just fell out of my chair laughing. You're kidding right?
Heres the main difference between a foreign professional and a bahamian professional: the foreigner got their degree, then went to work among other professionals with years of experience, they learned things from the senior employees for years. They experienced a vast array of projects in their field.
The Bahamian,comes home, with little or no experience, degree in hand, and thinks theyre as qualified as everyone else. Proudly touting their degree and demanding top pay....... in reality, they have dunning kruger syndrome, and don't know it of course.
Get a grip,we not only are lacking in qualified and experience people, but we also can't offer them experience, because we are such a small nation, and have so few companies and most all are small. The companies we have that are first world competative,well theyre staffed with foreign professionals.

"*transfer their knowledge to a foreign boss, ha ha ha ha, lol , lol, just fell out of my chair laughing*"

It's interesting that you don't think it's happened. I've spoken with senior management at the big hotel out west who talk about training the foreign hotdog man to be their boss. (I exaggerate with "hot dog man"). I spoke with someone else who had an interview with a foreigner at a hotel, This huge director of This and that title when I spoke with the individusl again they said, "they just like me". Meaning after couple weeks of interaction there was no evidence that the foreigner had any greater experience, they just happened to be white. This phenomenon is very common. Especially in the hotel industry also occurs in the banking industry. You see, the owners want their people in charge, it doesn't matter if the Bahamian is more qualified, they want a white face in the board room. You *could* argue it's their money they can do what they want, can't argue that it doesn't happen.

And you've actually put forward the rationale for the understudy program.

The health industry has operated an understudy program forever.

The understudies "apply" for the post of understudy, come with a given knowledge base and experience, are assessed on the overall potential contribution to the **industry as a whole** once trained, noone tells them which organization they have to work for at the end of training. They typically complete 2 years of training before they are certified at the expert level in the area of training and they are paid a subsistence salary over the training period. These programs are typically held at institutions specifically geared to training doctors, I could be wrong but I believe those institutions receive federal funding for those programs. If we want a given number of Bahamian experts why don't we use that model? That way the COUNTRY benefits, the COUNTRY decides which areas are needed and the business owner doesn't take on the burden of an extra salary. Tge only stipulation would be the induvidual must work in country fir a given period once complete...say 5 years.

Also these are people being trained to be experts, there's no you're too old. You want experience and knowledge base. And these are going to be people who work so the Bahamians lazy argument won't apply. Over time you will have created so many experts you will have Bahamians training Bahamians.

If you do as Goudie says and send them off to be trained, they're not coming back

Yes it will cost money.. but our only way out of this mess is to invest in people. We spend 130 million+ on that hotel and 95million on the bec generators with no cooling system.

Thanks for the revelation, Bran. We didn't know this

Motivation is a huge factor. Take for instance a gardener. You have a Bahamian who most likely hates been a gardener and looking forward to moving on. You have a Haitian who is thrill to be working a steady job. I have tried landscaping and I lasted only one week. I was not giving a fair chance to be good at it. My boss at the time give me a pick axe and a shovel and pointed out a mountain of harden filled and told me to level it off.

well you just explained your own outcome, you gave up after 1 week.

You need to put your time in, do the work,learn and eventually you would become a landscaper.

You'd have to be awfully entitled in your thinking to expect that in the first week you'd be moved to a position beyond bottom of the hierarchy laborer, and delusional to think in one week you could become good at anything.
You had a chance,and you failed.

The "work ethic" needs to be expanded on and may be coming from wicked abusive slavery etc rmployers among the mix. Many handymen, gardeners, housekeepers are desperate to survive and take care of children in school and send back money to homelands. Many hard working labourers will do above and beyond to work early to after hours and not complaining no back talk, passive subservient and endure abuse. Foreign workers seems basically captive workers. Not entirely "work ethic" applied knowing if self enslaved worker to survive and send money back to dire poverty stricken family in Haiti. to survive have food, send children to school, save money to send for more dire struggling family willing to pay passage to go into ricketery boat to come. Many employers knowing the them going above and beyond two different jobs, dangerous conditions are vrry generous paying above wages. One set of controlled conditions must bear. And who will any Foreign abused employee any foreign rmployer go and complain to..but do the work harder...???...

There are other angles to look at and judging Bahamians and judging foreign Workers must be on the same terms, conditions.