CAPRI Commentaries

Amid Jamaica’s record-low unemployment and a tightening labour market, the 411,000 working-age individuals currently classified as “outside the labour force” seem to represent a source of untapped productive potential. CAPRI’s latest report, “Outside In,” examines the 35 percent of the working-age population, aged 18 to 70, who are neither employed nor seeking work, exploring the factors that contribute to their disengagement from the labour market. While the temptation exists to view this large group of non-participants as a potential labour pool ready to be…

Ask ChatGPT to analyse any policy problem and it will invariably identify multiple possible “root causes” and recommend a “comprehensive”, “holistic”, or “multifaceted” cocktail of policy solutions. The AI’s training data reflects the bias of contemporary policy discourse: we tend to reason that policy problems that appear complex warrant commensurately layered solutions. However, this logic is flawed, and often employed to dismiss targeted policy proposals as mythical “…

The 10th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference recently convened over 1,200 attendees in Montego Bay to discuss strengthening engagement between Jamaica and its diaspora. Key stakeholders, including government officials, private sector leaders, local Jamaicans, and Jamaicans living abroad, emphasized the call for diaspora members to "come home". This call raises two critical questions: …

In 2019, Jamaica implemented a phased ban on single-use plastic bags, straws, and polystyrene products. The ban, established under two 2018 ministerial orders, prohibits the importation, distribution, manufacture, and use of these items,…

CAPRI’s reports “Zero Murders: Searching for Lessons from Two…

In April 2023, Jamaica hit a record low unemployment rate of 4.5 percent, underlining a shift from a decades long economic problem of surplus labour capacity. The current rate of less than 5 percent, defined by most economists as “full employment”, is unprecedented in Jamaica’s post-independence history, during which unemployment averaged 17 percent. The labour market situation has created a shortage of workers across several industries and skill levels and has led the…