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On the ca­reers por­tal page of web­site of the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, it is dis­closed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 35,000 peo­ple are em­ployed in T&T’s civ­il ser­vice in per­ma­nent and tem­po­rary roles across min­istries and de­part­ments. That web­site al­so dis­clos­es that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 21,000 peo­ple work with­in the 14 re­gion­al and mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions. That is 56,000 peo­ple em­ployed in the civ­il ser­vice and in lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

If one adds the pro­tec­tive ser­vices—such as the De­fence Force, po­lice, fire and pris­ons ser­vices—an­oth­er 17,200 em­ploy­ees are paid by the Gov­ern­ment, again ac­cord­ing to the web­site of the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence.

By my es­ti­mate, there­fore, a to­tal of 73,200 peo­ple re­ceive month­ly salaries from the Gov­ern­ment, ex­clud­ing the URP (Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme) and the Cepep (Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme), which have been a fea­ture of em­ploy­ment in this coun­try. Both of these pro­grammes have been sus­pend­ed and may nev­er re­turn..