An Education Needs Assessment of CARIFORUM Firms

development; cyber defence and protection; industrial control systems and operational

technologies; vulnerability assessment; and threat management (ONSA 2022).

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Soft Skills

As services-based economies, training in soft skills is essential for the Caribbean (Ripani

(2015). Fazio and Pinder (2014) found that employers cited soft skills deficiencies as one

of the most mentioned difficulties in recruiting new employees in the Bahamas. Two in

three employees lost their jobs due primarily to the lack of soft skills. Although this study

is quite dated, more recent studies confirm some existence of soft skills deficiencies. For

example, OAS’ 2017 Regional Forum on Youth Unemployment in the Caribbean,

Suriname’s 2018 National Training Authority Sector Study, and St. Lucia’s 2020 Labour

Market Needs Assessment Survey all point to a lack and importance of soft skills,

particularly customer relations/service skills (considered the most important), emotional

intelligence, team work, creativity, decision making, punctuality, adaptability, poor work

ethic, communication and others (OAS 2017; Pierre 2018; Jordan 2020). One study in the

Dominican Republic found that the impact of programmes providing soft skills training is

not limited to getting a quality job but continues even six years after the training (Ibarraran

et al. 2018). While a more recent 2019 study on the impact of soft-skills training for

entrepreneurs in Jamaica found positive short-term impacts of soft-skills training on

business outcomes (Ubfal et al. 2019).

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Business Skills

Within the sector-specific skills gaps discussed below, entrepreneurial and business-related

skills gaps are frequently citied. In Antigua and Barbuda’s 2018 Labour Force Survey ,

business skills, particularly developing business plans for funding and strategic planning,

were identified as critical areas for training (Statistics Division Ministry of Finance and

Corporate Governance 2018). The 2022 USAID Digital Ecosystem Country Assessment

for the Eastern and Southern Caribbean found that some regional entrepreneurs lacked the

necessary business acumen to develop robust business plans and models (Cowen et al.,

2022). Caribbean Export expresses a similar narrative acknowledging the need for business

capacity training, especially from an export perspective in areas such as market intelligence

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