On 5 March 2026, nearly a dozen experts from the Caribbean and Latin America gathered online for a conversation that could reshape how millions of young people enter the workforce. The webinar, hosted by the International Labour Organization and titled "Building Evidence-Based Quality Apprenticeship Systems," brought together government officials, skills practitioners, and social partners to tackle a region-wide crisis: how do you move from hopeful aspiration to hard data when designing apprenticeship systems that actually work?
The urgency is real. Across the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, informal employment stands at 75 per cent region-wide—a figure that reveals itself even more starkly when Haiti is excluded from the calculation, dropping only to 50 per cent. Labour productivity growth has hovered near zero over two decades, far below what other parts of the world have managed. Young people are leaving school without jobs or training prospects, and the region's most educated workers are increasingly packing their bags for opportunities abroad, leaving high-skilled labour shortages at home. The pattern is familiar but fixable, the panellists argued, if countries ground their reforms in evidence rather than guesswork.
The conversation centered on the ILO's Quality Apprenticeships Recommendation, 2023 (No. 208), a global standard designed to help countries build apprenticeship systems that are fair, inclusive, and responsive to labour market realities. Ilca Webster, Skills and Lifelong Learning Specialist at the ILO Caribbean Office, and Takaaki Kizu, Technical Officer for Skills Development at ILO Geneva, introduced its seven thematic pillars, emphasizing that it offers a framework, not a rigid prescription. "Recommendation No. 208 gives countries a clear framework—not a prescription," Webster said. "The Caribbean has the flexibility to adapt these principles to its own realities. What matters is that evidence drives the design."
Three countries shared their real-world paths forward. In The Bahamas, Michelle Malcolm, Executive Director of the National Apprenticeship Programme, described how her country moved decisively after passing the Apprenticeship Act in 2024, launching before all planned institutions were fully in place. The early results spoke for themselves: strong employer uptake and solid apprentice retention across construction, hospitality, maritime, and technical trades. "Do not wait for perfect conditions," Malcolm told the webinar. "We launched, we measured, and the evidence we generated is now shaping the programme going forward."
Bermuda, led by Malika Cartwright of the Ministry of Economy and Labour, operates a formal earn-and-learn model anchored in legislation and backed by industry-aligned Occupation Advisory Committees. Trinidad and Tobago contributed critical labour market intelligence: Sharon Parmanan, Senior Economist at the National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, presented findings showing that only between 10 and 36 per cent of recent graduates are considered well-prepared by employers in five emerging sectors—aviation, software development, agro-processing, tourism, and maritime. The lesson was stark: apprenticeship systems must be designed around real labour market demand, not assumptions.
Beyond the immediate challenge of school-to-work transitions lies another horizon. Miriam Preckler, Director of Education at CAF—Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean—highlighted that 11.4 per cent of all occupational profiles already require significant green skills, spanning renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, green construction, and waste management. As the region transitions toward a greener economy, the apprenticeship systems being built now must anticipate that future. The webinar made clear that evidence-based design, peer learning, and flexibility are not luxuries—they are the foundations of training systems built to last.