Many youths turned out on February 9, 2012 at the Career and Job Fair seeking employment and over 200 commitments for jobs were given.

This was disclosed by Minister for Education and Culture Hon. Myron Walwyn on February 9, 2012 at the opening of the Career and Job Fair by the Ministry of Education where opportunities for employment was offered to many of the Territory's unemployed youths who had turned out to seek employment.

"Some of the registrants of the Youth Unemployment Registrar have even already gone on interviews and secured jobs. These opportunities come from a wide cross-section of industries, the public service, tourism, real estate, financial services, health services, telecommunications, engineering, transportation, utilities and consumer retail. Young people, this should let you know that your Virgin Islands community is supporting you 100 and 10 percent!" the Minister said.

"As I have shared with you before, it is not how you start, but how you finish and yes, this is your opportunity to start and I encourage you to do so with the right attitude."

He urged them to be patient and dream big for themselves but in the meantime they should learn from their supervisors, learn to take constructive criticism, dedication to the task at hand, responsibility for themselves and to their team members, and always seek to add value to their new job.

"If it means stacking shelves at Road Town Wholesale, do it efficiently and enthusiastically. It shows your supervisors that you are ready for a new challenge. If your job is to serve as a receptionist at Scrub Island Resort, have a pleasant personality and take the time to know the ins and outs of your organization. It will add to your efficiency and a positive public image of your new company; there success is your success. If you are hired as an engineer at LIME, master your workload and explore what opportunities are available to allow your company to take advantage of new technology. It shows that you are interested in your field and identify with the success of your organization."

He further told the youths that while those things may seem simple, as an employer himself, he knows it means that "you are interested in seeing all of us succeed and that is the attitude that puts you on the path to promotion."

Hon. Walwyn thanked all the employers who came on board and supported the programme.

"This says to me that our business community realizes that by offering opportunities to our youth, you also offer the chance for the entire Virgin Islands to be revitalized. The value of these opportunities does not come as a mere exchange of payment for services. They come with the belief that by helping a youth in the Virgin Islands enter the job force at an early stage, gives us all the opportunity to benefit from gainfully engaged young professionals, ready to take up their responsibility in advancing our society."

Meanwhile, speaking on NDP Radio on February 6, 2012, Hon. Walwyn had given an update on the programme and had said some 70 employments were already secured with more forthcoming.

Noting that she is an internet aficionado, host of the programme Eileene Parsons had said one of the things that the bloggers have been saying is that the children out of school have difficulty explaining themselves.

“Their vocabulary is sometimes practically non-existent and this is why maybe they are having difficulty finding a job. They don’t know how to write a letter of application or resume and they talk in short hand,” commented Ms. Parsons as she asked the Minister how he was addressing this.

Hon. Walwyn noted that such talk has been heard several times particularly from some of the employers and “we are working on the problems in the education system to make sure that we take care of that situation but we are where we are now and some months ago we embarked on the Youth Unemployment Register and on to completion. When we went in to do work in earnest starting with seminars and so on we had in excess of 500 persons who signed up with the register.”

He noted that there was not a full turnout for the work readiness seminar as there were some 300 persons. “We have been working with that number in terms of the training that we have done over a two-week period. We call it a work ready programme where we deal with things like attitude, developing good work ethics and that sort of thing.”

It was also noted that on Tuesday and Wednesday the potential employees would have been taught how to put their resumes together.

The work readiness seminars, which concluded on February 3, 2012, were facilitated by Judith Vanterpool and Albert Wheatley. The sessions covered customer service, team building skills, personality profiling and effective communication between colleagues, supervisors and managers.