Former Finance Minister Colm Imbert has questioned the reliability of Trinidad and Tobago’s unemployment statistics, arguing that reported job losses across three public employment programmes should have produced a noticeable increase in unemployment.
Speaking at an opposition press conference, Imbert challenged the Finance Minister’s reported claim that approximately 5,000 more people were employed than previously.
He argued that the comparison relied on outdated Central Statistical Office information.
Imbert estimated that the Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme previously employed approximately 11,000 people at a given time, the Unemployment Relief Programme 7,000 and the reforestation programme 4,000.
Together, he said, those programmes accounted for approximately 22,000 jobs.
He claimed that workers were retrenched around the middle of 2025 and questioned why the unemployment rate had not risen correspondingly.
Imbert further suggested that replacement employment initiatives had provided fewer than 2,000 jobs at any one time.
He called for scrutiny of how employment data were being collected and presented.
However, his calculations did not establish that all 22,000 workers remained unemployed, and no independent assessment of subsequent employment or labour-force participation was presented.
The former minister’s central concern was whether official statistics adequately reflected changes in public programme employment.