The Cayman Islands National Workforce Development Agency (NWDA) has apologised for an advertisement on their website that featured a job vacancy for a full time admin clerk paying a maximum of $24k that required an MBA or computer science masters.

The following is the Statement from the National Workforce Development Agency (NWDA) Regarding Job Advertisement Posted on NDWA Website

The National Workforce Development Agency (NWDA) acknowledges and sincerely apologises for the chain of events that led to a job vacancy advertisement being posted on the agency’s website without incorporating modifications that were agreed to by the employer. This marks a singular, isolated incident among the many job postings – now totaling 268 live postings as of 27 November 2014 and the nearly 500 job postings (now expired) in October 2014 and the 436 job postings (also expired) in September 2014.

NWDA plays a valuable role for bridging the information gap between job seekers and employers about existing vacancies and job opportunities. While the agency does not require at this point in time for employers to post job listings on its database, NWDA staff process an average of 10-30 job postings every single business day. These numbers fluctuate, depending on the size of the employer, labour needs, and the seasonality of employment openings, particularly in tourism sector.

The agency makes every effort to provide quality control measures for these listings and to match these listings against industry norms (i.e. reviewing job title, salary, educational level and years of experience) in order to ensure that the posting is one where able and ready Caymanians have the ability to effectively compete. If there are mismatches against industry norms, or if the employer presents a job listing which represents a clear breach of the Labour Law or the Gender Equality Law, then NWDA staff will work with the employer to ensure compliance with the law and to help the hiring manager think more clearly about the ways that their job tasks can be more accurately reflected. If the company is not responsive to modify their posting, then the listing will not be accepted in our system.

The NWDA is a growing agency with expanded staff capacity. With this growth also comes the need to navigate the learning curves associated with the new operating policies and procedures that have been developed and necessary to screen the increased volume of job postings. In this unique situation, procedures were not totally followed as the lines of communication were not distinct and clear. However, we have taken this error in posting as an agency-wide learning experience. Moving forward, we have instituted a checks and balance system in the job approval process, and we are keeping detailed logs to document each step of the approval process. This will ensure that in the future an action is not taken inadvertently and that staff has internal accountability to management and to the Ministry.

One of functions of the NWDA is to allow our clients to have access to job listings that match their qualifications against an employer’s needs, and job applicants who are interested in applying for a job can then be considered on a competitive, equal footing with foreign workers. Additionally, employers will know that they have applicants available locally and that their hiring plans and recruitment activity will be documented and shared with Immigration. By establishing these internal and external safeguards, NWDA job listings will not include those that are written that give an unfair advantage to a non-Caymanian or have unreasonable expectations for a Caymanian applicant. With these processes now institutionalized, we trust that this will diminish the possibility of errors like this occurring in the future.

See attachment for job

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