By Daniel Bertie Port of Spain

Copyright trinidadexpress

The Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) was never designed to be a permanent form of employment. The official description provided makes that clear: it is a short-term, rotational, community-focused programme offering stipends, not salaries, and without traditional employment benefits.

The intention was to:

• provide temporary relief to unemployed persons

• offer on-the-job training to build basic skills

• assist communities through small projects, particularly with churches, schools, and NGOs.

What has happened over the years, however, is that URP has often been treated as long-term employment. Many workers have remained in the programme for years, sometimes even decades, developing an expectation of permanency. This shift is tied to larger political and social issues:

• Dependency culture: For some communities, URP became a steady source of income when alternative job opportunities were scarce.

• Patronage and politics: Over time, URP allocations were sometimes influenced by political connections, reinforcing the idea that it was a “job” rather than a temporary support measure.

• Skill stagnation: While training was supposed to help workers transition to other employment, the system has not consistently delivered this, leaving many without pathways to sustainable careers.

So, when we hear today about the “firing” of URP workers, it’s more accurate to frame it as the programme being realigned to its original purpose: temporary, rotational relief. The pain felt by workers is real, but it comes from years of the programme drifting away from what it was meant to be.

This raises tough but necessary questions:

• Should URP continue in its current form, or be reshaped into a structured skills-to-work pipeline that genuinely prepares people for long-term jobs?

• How can Government balance compassion for those who have depended on URP for decades, with the need to reform a system that was never designed to be permanent employment?

• And importantly, how can communities be empowered to create sustainable jobs so that reliance on URP diminishes?

According to the website of The Ministry of Works, the principal function of the URP is to provide short-term employment for unemployed persons in the community. The unemployed are provided with work on a rotation basis, every two to three fortnights (four to six weeks). Persons employed through the URP are not entitled to any employment benefits or vacation leave. A stipend is paid to individuals to assist them financially; however, the payment should not be considered a salary.

While I am very empathetic to those who have been severed from URP, we must remember the main function of this programme within our society.