A Community College graduate with passes in law and sociology, a former secretary at a primary school, a 35-year-old father, and a former employee unsure of her severance pay were among the hundreds of persons who turned at the “open call for vacancies” by the new KFC franchise holders on Tuesday.
The franchise holders, Tessa and Kelly Glass, have not commented on the number of persons who actually turned out to seek employment, but I-Witness News was told that at least 350 persons were given numbers for interviews.
“I am here because I am seeking employment. The country is very hard and I need some kind of job because I have children to maintain and my life also,” a 26-year-old mother of two children, ages, 6 and 4, told I-Witness News while she waited her interview at Blue Lagoon Hotel in Ratho Mill.
The Green Hill resident, a graduate of the St. Joseph’s Convent Kingstown and the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College, where she studied law and sociology, told I-Witness News that she last worked in March of this year, taking care of an elderly person under private arrangements.
Asked why she, as a college graduate with her qualification, want to work at a fast food restaurant, the woman told I-Witness News, “Yes, I may have my education but the country’s economy is not nice and I need some kind of employment in order to make it in this country.
“I need some kind of employment in order to make it in this life. I have my children to mind. They are going to school,” she said.
A 24-year-old female resident of New Prospect told I-Witness News that she went straight into the workforce after graduating New Adelphi Secondary School.
The mother of a 5-year-old son has worked as a secretary at a primary school and has had several jobs in the hotel industry.
She last worked in March 2014.
Asked what kind of job she was hoping to land at KFC, she told I-Witness News, “Honestly, anything. Anything. Anything.”
Among the persons who were successful in getting an interview was a 27-year-old Redemption Sharpes resident who worked with KFC for four years before it went into receivership in March.
She said that during her interview she was asked “simple things” such as why she would like to work with the company again and what she would like to see changed about it.
She told I-Witness News that she has not received severance pay after the closure of the restaurant, which was then under the management of then franchise holder Ken Boyea and St. Clair Investments.
“Up to now, no call. Nobody is telling us anything,” she told I-Witness News.
“Seeing that a new company has taken over, that means that the assets have already been sold, as they say. But we are still having no communication with anybody. It’s like nobody don’t care about us,” she said.
The woman was, however, optimistic that she will be among those chosen to work when KFC reopens.
“I am confident. I know myself. And if the job includes KFC, I know my whereabouts in KFC. You blindfold me and put me in KFC, I know what to do,” she said.
But a 35-year-old father of Riley was too late get a number for an interview when he arrived.
He told I-Witness News that he has a 2-year-old son and has been unemployed for about two years now.
The man, who is originally from Chateaubelair, told I-Witness News that he graduated from the Petit Bordel Secondary School.
“I wasn’t the brightest, but I graduated secondary school,” he said.
Asked his opinion of the unemployment situation in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, he told I-Witness News, “To put it frankly, it’s terrible.”
He said the KFC officials told him that they had already given out 350 names when he arrived.
“They took my name and number and they say they have other interviews to do and in case of anything they will give us a call.”
The man was hoping for a job as a security guard
“That is the first thing I put. And if anything else arises, once it’s employment, I am willing to do it,” he told I-Witness News.
By way of contrast, in many developed countries where KFC has franchises, foreign temporary workers have to be brought in from poor countries to fill jobs local workers, except high school or college students working part time or during the summer, reject as beneath their notice because of the low pay, few benefits, low status, low advancement potential, shift work, etc.
These lines of unemployed are just more evidence of:
1. the failure of the education revolution
2. the high unemployment rate in our country
3. the waste in educating people for non-existent jobs
4. the willingness of our people to accept work, any work
5. the failure of the current regime to promote economic development and job creation
C ben,
What the hell you know about what happens, or who works at the KFC. in developed countries, you are a small town boy, who displays a ” donkey cart mentality”.
Let me tell you something ,do you know how many people from other countries who are doctors ,nurses, engineers, chemists, etc.. who are driving taxis, also working at KFC, or just being janitors; just because they can’t get into there profession for one reason or the other,there language, the exams etc. in these same developed countries, makes it difficult.
You sit there like that LAZY Eustace and run you darm mouth, about S***T you don’t know, and think you are fooling anyone.
You are a small minded boy from a small country, learn, and not shoot S***T.
” if the shoe fits, you got to wear it”, and if it don’t ” you put it where the sun don’t shine”
Get the drift ? ha
You have to do better than this. The people you talk about have second rate credentials from third rate institutions in their home countries. Why should we give these equivalent standing in America? Many so-called doctors from poor countries who want equivalence have fewer skills, knowledge, and training than our home-trained massage therapists.
On the other hand, many of our SVG college graduates are at least as good as their peers in America and would get a job here in a heartbeat if they could get a visa. In the meantime, they have to line up for a dead end fast food job in SVG. What a shameful waste of their talents, skills, and ambition.
Try harder next time, sir!
Watch a sad situation in our country.I thought the youths are lazy and don,t want to work according to many of our brilliant radio personalities on star fm.I hope Luther Bonadie and the many ULP and Ralph Gonsalves worshippers make an unbiased comment on this situation.I hope on star fm today and onwards Hans King,Elson Crick,Frank DaSilva,Mrs Gittens-Gilkes and the others spend time to tell the youths how their party plans to rescue them from this terrible unemployment situation instead of trying to demonise anyone who dares to say anything against Ralph and the ULP.
Up on visiting the BVI just over a year ago i madly in love with the ULP government man told me that there’s plenty work in St Vincent but the people are lazy and don’t want to work. The argument was so heated that I forget to ask him what was he doing in the BVI a place that he said he was so sick of. Am wondering if he seeing the kind of people that are applying here for a job that is look down on in the US.
Well written. My tears were held back.
Yes, there is high unemployment in the country, “even college graduate went to be interviewed” You know that the economy is hard, you have children to take care of, why in the first place put yourself through such state? If it was hard for u alone, why go and bring children in this world under this hard economic crisis, you think things will get better when theres more mouth now to feed?, y dont these graduates take up overseas scholarships and and have children when they can take care of them properly and stop blame the government for everything.
Why didn’t I see you at the job fare handing out birth control pamphlet and distributing condoms?
Smallie your obviously slightly silly, so I have chosen not to reply to your very silly posting above.
The government claim everything that goes right for them, but denies ownership of everything that goes wrong for them, their dastardly failures, more wrongs than rights.
So sorry Smallie, but I am unable to answer your post.
By the way we can blame some sections of the government for the child population, some of them have kids outside of their family.
Sorry once again that I could not find time to answer you.
Peter Griffin,
I see you never got around much in life, your displayed much small town mentallity.
My advise to you is to seek knowledge of societies today , before you start running your mouth about what you can only see as far as your nose.
Don’t tell me that this is your best shot. You need to raise your game, sir.
Ben,
Don’t worry I am just warming up.
Nice one Luther.The derogatory remarks is not surprising to me because that is how Ralph Gonsalves has thought all of you to respond to criticism.When the world economic crisis hit us a few years ago I took my two ears and heard Ralph Gonsalves say that it would not affect us because our banks are in good condition,now today you all are blaming the crisis in the world which some countries have long recovered from and some of you are even blaming the coming of the most high.I dont know where you were and how old were you before Ralph Gonsalves became PM because back then he use to blame James Mitchell and Randolph Toussaint for everything that went wrong in SVG.Stop making excuses and start calling a spade a spade.
Luther I have not gotten around much in life but maybe you have so if you have why don,t you share your thoughts on our PM calling people ungrateful when he and his government uses tax payers money to do things for tax payers and behaves as if they took the money out of their own pocket.Do you think that Obama or David Cameron can dare to speak that kind of crap in their country?Tell the PM to stop with that small town behaviour.
Peter Griffin.,
You said you don’t get around much; therefore, how you know what Obama and David Cameron does with tax payers money, what, you watch CNN all day for information.
How could compare England and the USA with St. Vincent, are you foolish, those countries run there tax systems and economy different that ours.
Man, stop looking outside for answers.
You live in a small island, you are ungrateful, just as the other, so don’t sell S***T about Ralph where there is none.
Vincentian people by there nature are a ungrateful bunch, if you don’t believe me go to the Cemetery and dig up Joshua and Cato and they will tell you stories about Vincentian people, or better yet, go now and ask Sir James, he’ll shut you up for good.
You are like that other small minded Peter Bemuse, always in the game for something for themselves and not for the nation.
“Let freedom rain”, as per Martin Luther King.
I’ll say this , let it rain so the youths can strive, and small minded people like you and others will be dead as dead.
If nothing else shows Gonsalves and the family dynasty ULP government failure, this certainly does.
That’s why the ULP propagandist Lutha Bonadie has come to the ULP defence here today.
He is trying to make wrong right, but the truth is more powerful than that, its the truth that Bonadie wants to stifle he just hates the truth when it hurts the current regime.
Peter,
If you’re smart you’ll know that truth don’t exist. It’s all perception, and cultural.
One may tell the truth and one will think it’s a lie, one may tell a lie, and one will think it’s a truth.
I don’t know what truth you can tell, seeing that you’re lieing from the start.
Thus the very name Peter Benose is a lie.
Peter,
You know, I kinder like you, I do disagree with you, on just about everything for the reason that you put self before nation, and that’s a cardinal sin.
It that sense, I have no respect for you.
Ralph Gonzales is the prime minister of St. Vincent, on a scale of one to ten I’ll give him an 9 plus average.
Comprehensively, I see no one in St. Vincent at this time who can outdo that average, So I am a supporter of the prime minister; now if you know of any one currently, who can do a better job, please let me know.
You and I know that Eustace is a LAZY and a backward individual, so don’t call his name. ( for the record, I was a Mitchel support, and still is )
My interest in all this is for St. Vincent and it’s people, and that is something you small minded Vincentian like yourself, C-Ben, Peter Griffin and others like that cannot understand.
Still today, after 55 years ( circa), that Joshua, Cato doctrine still run in many minds, (” burn it down, but gee me foo me own “).
You dumb ass small minded Vincentians , the world will pass you buy and you will stand forever looking stupid with a empty stomachs.
HAIL TO RALPH GONSALVES , and to HELL WITH PEOPLE LIKE YOU. ha.
Comprende ? / si entiendes ?
Thank you Bonadie for your obvious appreciation and admiration of me.
Well you have really given the readers a lesson in the Marxist way that the Gonsalves family dynsty owned Unity Labour Party think and behave.
If you actually believe by behaving in such a way will in some way give you, your master, and the family dynasty owned ULP credibility, you must a be bigger fool than I first thought. Carry on, I revel in the damage that you are actually doing, because there some nice people in the ULP, who will find your behavior just as revolting and out of order as any other decent person.
What you write is a confirmation that you and those of your ilk do not know right from wrong, or if you do, you choose wrong.
I was reading a very interesting email I received earlier which contained the following
How To Create a Social State
1) Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people, give them lots of clinics and a hospital, having medicines and cures is immaterial its the image of those buildings, the doctors and nurses which are important.
2) Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live. Give them handouts, just small amounts and they will worship your very being
3) Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty. Because its only people in poverty that can be easily controlled, and only people in poverty who can become part of a socialist revolution.
4) Gun Control -Remove the ability of people to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5) Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income). Make sure they have plenty of cheap food even if its akin to pig swill, they will appreciate a full stomach and lay around and sleep all day.
6) Education – Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school. Give them false history and false idles, it is easier to put socialism in the mind of a child than an adult.
7) Religion – Remove the belief in God from the Government and schools. You can only do this after all the above begins to work, but prior to that use religion to convince people you are decent man worth following.
8) Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor. This is one of the first rungs of the ladder in the destruction of the bourgeoisie.
Bet you cant guess who wrote that whilst studying at UWI?
As for your very nasty unjustified and untruthful attack on the Honorable Arnhim Eustace, the man is decent, unlike your master, he has never been charged with rape or accused of sexual assault by a host of women.
Earnings in SVG for a 7.5-hour day at KFC: $EC25.00 (maximum estimate)
Minimum credentials: secondary school graduation with several subjects; good communications skills and a friendly manner
Earnings in America for an 7.5-hour day at KFC: $EC240.00 ($US90.00)
Minimum credentials: can speak and understand a little English and make change
For those who would reply “so what?” I add that the cost of food (unless you are willing to eat small fish and green banana every day), clothing, and utilities (except water, which is very cheap here) are at least twice that of the United States and other similar countries.
These are real and measurable — not imaginary and hypothetical — signs of a country in distress.
No wonder so many of our young people want to leave for greaner pastures.
So, how can the current government boast so much about the great job they are doing running the country and stimulating the economy?
So Mr Ralph worshipper Luther if Ralph Gonsalves is the only one among us who can lead then it is correct to say that the highly praised education revolution has failed.What about you?You cant fly like an eagle with it,s wings unclipped as what your PM usually says?Maybe you are right because with your line of reasoning I see why is Ralph alone can be PM.By the way you still have not commented on the ungrateful that Ralph keeps calling vincentians when he is employed by vincentians to do a job.
C-Ben,
The more I read your comments the dumber you sound.
What is the cost of living in the USA . Do you know ?
What is the cost of transportation, what is the cost of heating, what is the cost for food, what is the tax rates, what is the cost for child care, what is the cost for rent, or mortgage, for your information a bottle of Rum in the U.S. cost about $30. U.S in St.Vincent it’s what $16.
Which is about $6. U.S. Do the math.
Do you know that every cashier in the USA stand all day, in St. Vincent they sit all day.
Stop all this nonsense talk, and get a life, or get real.
Darm , all you small minded Vincentian just can’t learn, and will never learn anything about building, always find ways to destroy your own.
Typical black man mindset.
There is the difference between small mind and constructive mindset, smaller minds criticize while constructive mindset build.
You and the hole lot of ” donkey cart minded Vincentian ” will always try to pull down everything, and you are so stupid ,the end result is that , it is your own., and the suffering will be on you , your people and your children, not Ralph Gonsalves.
For the same bundle of goods and services, the cost of living in SVG is much higher than in the USA. A new car, van, or truck costs twice or three times as much in SVG. Parts and fuel are much higher as well.
As for housing, it all depends on what you want and where you live. The same quality house plus furnishings will cost much more in a rural area in SVG than a rural area in the USA. An apartment in NYC costs millions but there is no comparable place in SVG to compare this to.
You talk about heat but fail to mention air conditioning.
Rum and water — and cheap sex — are the only affordable things back home. Why didn’t you talk about scotch whisky which only the elite in SVG can afford to buy?
Little boy, you can’t win me!