SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

For more than 800 work­ers re­trenched be­tween Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber, the loss of a job has brought far more than fi­nan­cial un­cer­tain­ty. For some, it has trig­gered de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety at­tacks and se­ri­ous health com­pli­ca­tions, while oth­ers are seek­ing coun­selling to cope with the emo­tion­al toll of sud­den­ly los­ing their liveli­hoods.

Work­ers from Pro­man Trinidad, Nu­trien, Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort, Massy Cat and the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA), who were thrown on­to the bread­line in re­cent weeks, are strug­gling to find new jobs to sur­vive while bat­tling health com­pli­ca­tions, fi­nan­cial woes and an un­cer­tain fu­ture.

Be­tween Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber 20, 2026, Guardian Me­dia’s cal­cu­la­tions showed that more than 800 work­ers were laid off.

Last month, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 work­ers at State-owned Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort in To­ba­go were sent home, fol­lowed this month by an­oth­er 760 re­trench­ments across five com­pa­nies.

These in­clude 100 Pro­man Trinidad work­ers be­ing re­trenched fol­low­ing an an­nounce­ment on Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 9; 124 dai­ly-paid SWRHA work­ers los­ing their jobs on Thurs­day, Oc­to­ber 15; 350 con­tract Nu­trien work­ers be­ing put on the bread­line af­ter the com­pa­ny’s Oc­to­ber 5 an­nounce­ment; and around 140 Massy Cat em­ploy­ees, ex­act num­ber to be con­firmed, be­ing placed in lim­bo on Oc­to­ber 1 as Massy tran­si­tions its Cater­pil­lar busi­ness to Ma­chin­ery Cor­po­ra­tion Mo­tors Ltd. The com­pa­ny said 25 per cent of work­ers would be con­sid­ered for em­ploy­ment at MA­CORP and at Massy com­pa­nies where op­por­tu­ni­ties ex­ists.

Last Tues­day, Nestlé an­nounced 46 job cuts across its sales and ware­hous­ing teams.

On Oc­to­ber 6, 2026, it was an­nounced that ten em­ploy­ees of Trad­er Jack’s would be tem­porar­i­ly laid off.

The grow­ing num­ber of re­trench­ments comes against the back­drop of the lat­est da­ta on the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) web­site, which showed that near­ly 6,000 peo­ple lost their jobs in the first quar­ter of 2026 (Jan­u­ary to March).

An ex­am­i­na­tion of the CSO’s fig­ures showed that in the fourth quar­ter of 2025 (Oc­to­ber to De­cem­ber), 569,900 peo­ple were gain­ful­ly em­ployed across all sec­tors.

How­ev­er, by the first quar­ter of 2026, the fig­ure had dropped to 564,000, rep­re­sent­ing a de­crease of 5,900 jobs.

The lives of many of these for­mer work­ers are now in tur­moil, with mount­ing bills, health con­cerns and the emo­tion­al strain of try­ing to re­build their lives with­out a steady in­come.

Last Tues­day, three for­mer work­ers of Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia, said that since los­ing their jobs, they had been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing health is­sues and strug­gling to make ends meet.

The for­mer work­ers de­scribed their sack­ings as “an un­ex­pect­ed blow.”

A for­mer Nu­trien work­er al­so con­fessed that his “life has tak­en a turn for the worse” as he had no luck se­cur­ing a job.

Sud­den tur­moil

When Yvette Sim­mons (not her re­al name) re­ceived her re­trench­ment let­ter from Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort on Sep­tem­ber 23, it hit her like a tonne of bricks.

“I was in dis­be­lief,” she said, chok­ing with emo­tion.

Sim­mons, a ju­nior su­per­vi­sor with 11 years’ ser­vice, earned a month­ly salary of $4,500.

The let­ter ex­plained that, due to the ho­tel’s fi­nan­cial con­straints, work­ers had to be sent home tem­porar­i­ly.

“They promised to take back some of us.”

The ho­tel on­ly re­hired four ju­nior work­ers.

She said the promis­es made were not kept.

“I felt be­trayed.”

Since then, Sim­mons has sent her ré­sumé to eight com­pa­nies. No one has called.

“Across all sec­tors in To­ba­go, work is hard to find. It’s like look­ing for a nee­dle in a haystack. That’s be­cause of the grow­ing un­em­ploy­ment rate. Em­ploy­ers are not tak­ing on ad­di­tion­al work­ers be­cause of the con­tract­ing econ­o­my.”

The moth­er of two al­so ap­plied to the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment for a grant but is yet to re­ceive a re­sponse.

All she got from her MP was a one-time-use $550 food card.

“I lived pay cheque to pay cheque. I could have bare­ly saved for a rainy day. Now I am liv­ing with un­cer­tain­ty.”

With mount­ing bills, stress and no in­come com­ing in, Sim­mons be­gan to suf­fer from low blood pres­sure.

“It took a toll on my health, and I end­ed up at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for sev­er­al days.”

Dur­ing rou­tine tests, Sim­mons al­so found out that she had a heart prob­lem.

She now takes a com­bi­na­tion of tablets for her health is­sues.

Since the fir­ing, Sim­mons said a group of for­mer work­ers had en­gaged a union to seek re­dress for what she called their “wrong­ful dis­missals.”

The crush­ing news of Camille Fraz­er’s (not her re­al name) re­trench­ment from the ho­tel ar­rived just as her daugh­ter start­ed her first year at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies cam­pus, abrupt­ly turn­ing a proud mile­stone in­to an ag­o­nis­ing fi­nan­cial strug­gle.

Fraz­er worked at the ho­tel’s front desk for years.

Thrown in­to a tail­spin, Fraz­er’s daugh­ter had to stop go­ing to the cam­pus and switch to on­line class­es.

At that time, the moth­er of one al­so had to un­der­go surgery, which doc­tors de­ferred af­ter she was di­ag­nosed with hy­per­ten­sion.

“I have not done that med­ical pro­ce­dure yet be­cause my pres­sure is still high.”

The stress of im­pend­ing bills of­ten trig­gers de­bil­i­tat­ing anx­i­ety at­tacks as Fraz­er faces the over­whelm­ing re­al­i­ty of spi­ralling eco­nom­ic hard­ship.

“I can’t go job hunt­ing. I have to get back on my feet first.”

She be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment could have of­fered them an un­em­ploy­ment re­lief grant to cush­ion their fi­nan­cial bur­den.

But she said they were left to fend for them­selves.

“I feel so de­pressed at times, know­ing that I went to work one morn­ing and came back home job­less. I nev­er ex­pect­ed this. My body has not re­cov­ered from that shock, and I know it’s af­fect­ing my health.”

Fraz­er re­mem­bered the work­ers be­ing herd­ed in­to a room “like cat­tle to a slaugh­ter­house” and be­ing hand­ed their re­trench­ment let­ters. They were then im­me­di­ate­ly es­cort­ed out­side.

“This brought tears to my eyes. It was so un­car­ing, heart­less and in­sen­si­tive.”

Fraz­er said her hus­band now has to pay all the bills.

“I know it has been a lot of pres­sure for him. These job cuts have been im­pact­ing fam­i­lies.”

The sud­den ter­mi­na­tion shat­tered Joanne Perkins’ sense of se­cu­ri­ty and threw her liveli­hood in­to chaos, with her teenage daugh­ter’s $5,100 school fees due and rent out­stand­ing.

She claimed the ho­tel dis­missed her with­out pay­ing her ser­vice charge fees, amount­ing to thou­sands of dol­lars ac­cu­mu­lat­ed over a few months.

Perkins worked in the ban­quet de­part­ment.

“I would not lie…when I lost my job, I be­came de­pressed be­cause I find no­body should be treat­ed like that,” 56-year-old Perkins said.

Perkins, of Low­lands, To­ba­go, ad­mit­ted that the on­go­ing stress and wor­ry caused her to shed a few pounds.

“I have been stress­ing out. Who wouldn’t af­ter los­ing their work? God said the road wouldn’t be easy. But he said his yoke is easy and his bur­den is light.”

She said if the ho­tel called her back to work, she would turn them down.

“I would tell them to pull their next ap­pli­cant…I can’t face the dis­ap­point­ment of go­ing home again.”

The race to se­cure a new job be­came a dai­ly strug­gle for the sin­gle moth­er of one.

Af­ter knock­ing on dozens of doors seek­ing em­ploy­ment, Perkins re­cent­ly found a part-time job as a helper in a food es­tab­lish­ment.

“I even went to MTS hop­ing they would hire me, but they told me I was too old,” she claimed.

Mean­while, the for­mer Nu­trien work­er, who opt­ed not to re­veal his iden­ti­ty, said that af­ter his ter­mi­na­tion, his fam­i­ly be­gan to watch every cent be­ing spent.

“Nor­mal liv­ing is great­ly im­pact­ed as we look at every­thing we spend now. For years gone by, this wasn’t the case.”

Be­fore be­ing re­trenched, he served as an op­er­a­tions tech­ni­cian.

He spent 18 years work­ing with the ni­tro­gen com­pa­ny.

Still await­ing his sev­er­ance pack­age, the for­mer work­er said his job gave him a sense of ac­com­plish­ment and pur­pose.

Now he feels his chances of re­tain­ing a job are grow­ing slim.

De­spite send­ing out nu­mer­ous ap­pli­ca­tions since the an­nounce­ment, no one has re­spond­ed.

“Giv­en the num­ber of peo­ple ap­ply­ing for work, it’s rather hard, es­pe­cial­ly in the oil and gas in­dus­try. We need gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion, es­pe­cial­ly in pass­ing the Sev­er­ance Bill, mak­ing it law so com­pa­nies don’t ex­ploit work­ers.”

Men­tal an­guish

Af­ter 15 years at Pro­man Trinidad, 45-year-old en­gi­neer James Fran­cis (not his re­al name) is fac­ing an un­cer­tain fu­ture as he search­es for an­oth­er job while try­ing to shield his wife and two young chil­dren from the anx­i­ety of los­ing his liveli­hood.

Fran­cis, who was among the work­ers af­fect­ed by the re­cent re­trench­ment ex­er­cise, ad­mit­ted that al­though he had an­tic­i­pat­ed job cuts, he ex­pect­ed them to come next year rather than now.

“I was ex­pect­ing it af­ter the in­crease in nat­ur­al gas prices. There was on­ly so much Pro­man could have done to sus­tain every­body, but I was ex­pect­ing the re­trench­ment next year,” he ex­plained.

The loss of his job has brought a sud­den change to the rou­tine he main­tained for a decade and a half.

Fran­cis is try­ing to re­main strong for his wife and chil­dren, even as the re­al­i­ty of an un­cer­tain in­come be­gins to sink in.

“I try to put on a brave face for my wife and two kids. My wife cried be­cause she knows how the econ­o­my is right now and get­ting an­oth­er job quick­ly might not be pos­si­ble,” he re­vealed.

De­spite the un­cer­tain­ty, Fran­cis is hold­ing on to his faith as he works to se­cure an­oth­er po­si­tion.

“I trust God and know I will get a job,” he added.

He is ac­tive­ly seek­ing em­ploy­ment and has al­ready sent ré­sumés to sev­er­al com­pa­nies look­ing for en­gi­neers.

So far, though, he has not re­ceived a job of­fer.

Fran­cis re­mains hope­ful that his ex­pe­ri­ence and tech­ni­cal skills will open an­oth­er door, but the prospect of an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od with­out work is a ma­jor con­cern.

His re­spon­si­bil­i­ties ex­tend be­yond find­ing em­ploy­ment.

Fran­cis ac­knowl­edged that some peo­ple have viewed his 15 years of ser­vice as a rea­son to con­sid­er his sev­er­ance pay­ment a sub­stan­tial fi­nan­cial cush­ion.

He cau­tioned, how­ev­er, that the mon­ey must cov­er on­go­ing house­hold ex­pens­es while he search­es for an­oth­er source of in­come.

“A lot of peo­ple told me, ‘Oh, it’s 15 years you were there for, so your sev­er­ance is a good pay­out. And I said no, mon­ey runs out. I have chil­dren, I have a car loan and mort­gage,” he ex­plained.

Un­der the sev­er­ance arrange­ment out­lined to work­ers, em­ploy­ees with more than one year but less than five years of ser­vice were to re­ceive 0.75 months’ pay for each com­plet­ed year, while those with five years or more were en­ti­tled to one month’s salary for each year of ser­vice.

For Fran­cis, the pay­ment of­fers some fi­nan­cial sup­port, but it does not re­move the pres­sure of find­ing an­oth­er job be­fore his sav­ings are de­plet­ed.

Be­yond the fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions, the re­trench­ment has al­so af­fect­ed his sense of pur­pose.

As an en­gi­neer, he took pride in the con­tri­bu­tion he made to Pro­man, par­tic­u­lar­ly in main­te­nance work that helped keep op­er­a­tions run­ning.

In the mean­time, Fran­cis has turned to his pas­tor for sup­port and is at­tend­ing coun­selling ses­sions to help him nav­i­gate the tran­si­tion.

For 47-year-old Michael Hug­gins (not his re­al name), los­ing his job af­ter a decade at Pro­man Trinidad came at one of the most dif­fi­cult mo­ments of his life.

Hug­gins, who worked in the com­pa­ny’s in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy de­part­ment for ten years, re­ceived his re­trench­ment let­ter the day af­ter los­ing a close rel­a­tive, leav­ing him to cope with be­reave­ment and the sud­den loss of his liveli­hood al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

“Who would have thought I had to deal with be­ing re­trenched and bury­ing a loved one right af­ter?” he asked.

The for­mer IT work­er de­scribed the pe­ri­od as emo­tion­al­ly over­whelm­ing, ad­mit­ting that he has fall­en in­to de­pres­sion and is now seek­ing ther­a­py to help him cope with the cir­cum­stances.

The re­trench­ment has al­so cre­at­ed un­cer­tain­ty for his fam­i­ly, as Hug­gins was the bread­win­ner and has a child with spe­cial needs who re­quires on­go­ing med­ical care and ex­pens­es.

With house­hold bills and med­ical costs to meet, he is con­cerned about how he will con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing for his fam­i­ly with­out a reg­u­lar salary.

While the sev­er­ance pay­ment of­fers some fi­nan­cial re­lief, Hug­gins recog­nis­es that it can­not re­place a steady in­come in­def­i­nite­ly.

Re­ceiv­ing sup­port from friends and fam­i­ly, who have of­fered both emo­tion­al en­cour­age­ment and fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, Hug­gins knows that he can­not de­pend on them in­def­i­nite­ly be­cause they have their own house­holds and fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions.

De­spite the emo­tion­al and fi­nan­cial strain, Hug­gins is try­ing to fo­cus on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­turn­ing to work.

He has a job in­ter­view sched­uled for next week and is hope­ful that it could mark the be­gin­ning of a new chap­ter in his life.

“I have a job in­ter­view next week, so fin­gers crossed,” he added.

For now, the prospect of em­ploy­ment of­fers a mea­sure of hope as he works through his grief, seeks pro­fes­sion­al help for his men­tal health and tries to main­tain sta­bil­i­ty for his child.

In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Spe­cial­ist: Work­ers at a dis­ad­van­tage

In the last three months, in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions spe­cial­ist Trevor John­son said there had been sev­er­al an­nounce­ments of re­trench­ments.

He said the Gov­ern­ment still had to pass a sev­er­ance ben­e­fit law in the Low­er House, aim­ing to mod­ernise the statu­to­ry frame­work gov­ern­ing ter­mi­na­tion on ac­count of re­dun­dan­cy.

“So that is a con­cern. You are clear­ly see­ing that em­ploy­ers are rush­ing to beat the tape be­fore the amend­ed piece of leg­is­la­tion be­comes law. The re­al­i­ty of that means it does not of­fer work­ers more pro­tec­tion and fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits. The Gov­ern­ment needs to do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary.”

He said when work­ers are unionised, trade unions can ne­go­ti­ate bet­ter sep­a­ra­tion pack­ages and ben­e­fits dur­ing re­trench­ments.

“Work­ers need to con­sid­er union rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

Such a step could pro­vide greater sta­bil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty against re­dun­dan­cy, ra­tio­nal­i­sa­tion, re­or­gan­i­sa­tion and re­struc­tur­ing.

In the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate, John­son said things had been hap­pen­ing quick­ly.

“Al­most all of those work­ers who you talked about be­ing re­trenched… all of them are now seek­ing union rep­re­sen­ta­tion or some kind of spe­cial­ist rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

This move, he said, came af­ter the fact.

When peo­ple lose their jobs, John­son said, they some­times fall sick, and with­out health in­sur­ance cov­er­age or the abil­i­ty to pay their month­ly pre­mi­ums, they are put at greater risk.

“We have seen this as far back as 2016 with the clo­sure of Arcelor­Mit­tal.”

The same thing hap­pened when Petrotrin shut down its re­fin­ery.

“Work­ers ei­ther died or fell ill, un­for­tu­nate­ly, due to all sorts of med­ical is­sues. When some­one gets re­trenched, es­pe­cial­ly in the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate or job mar­ket we are in, I don’t have to tell you it’s not as easy as two or three decades ago to just walk in­to an­oth­er job of com­par­a­tive terms and con­di­tions. It’s very dif­fi­cult.”

This has be­come a stress point for many peo­ple.

He ad­vised af­fect­ed work­ers to vis­it any of the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty so­cial ser­vices de­part­ments for as­sis­tance.

John­son said work­ers might need to be re­trained and reskilled to stay mar­ketable in the cur­rent work en­vi­ron­ment.

The labour re­la­tions spe­cial­ist al­so urged the Gov­ern­ment to pay at­ten­tion to the re­trench­ments and the rip­ple ef­fects they could have on the so­cial fab­ric, homes, busi­ness­es and the health care sys­tem.