Stuck In Place: Why Saint Lucia’s Master’s Graduates Are Finding Limited Opportunities

 For Saint Lucians with advanced degrees, ambition meets a harsh market reality, where academic achievement often yields little leverage in landing a fitting job. Saint Lucia is a sun-swept island enclosed in a less than 240 square mile border where beaches are often within a stroll’s distance. Outsiders see it as an ideal chance at slow living– many think a desire for something different is absurd. Yet a yearning for personal achievement and a need to make decent ends meet do not evade a person because he/she lives in the tropics. Continuous migration in fact would suggest in picturesque islands like Saint Lucia people still desire a reality beyond their immediate circumstances. Many use educational pursuits as a means.  Some higher education seekers station themselves overseas post-graduation, never returning home, while others do. In both instances, an objective to somehow progress tends to be the fuel. Yet, such a pursuit’s outcome for a person who returns to Saint Lucia is multifarious. Leanna Evans, Human Resource specialist and Managing Director of The HR Concepts Team has worked in the field for almost a decade. She is based in Saint Lucia where her interactions with the local job market and that of...