Re­cent wage in­creas­es to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers have been iden­ti­fied by the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) as a po­ten­tial hur­dle for eco­nom­ic growth in T&T in 2026.

In the con­clud­ing state­ment of the 2026 Ar­ti­cle IV mis­sion for T&T, the IMF staff said de­spite the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tiontak­ing of­fice in May 2025 with an em­pha­sis on eco­nom­ic re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion, there was con­sid­er­able un­cer­tain­ty about the do­mes­tic econ­o­my, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the short term.

'Un­der the cur­rent out­look for en­er­gy prices, agreed set­tle­ment of back­pay oblig­a­tions to pub­lic sec­tor union work­ers and ad­di­tion­al hir­ing of pub­lic sec­tor work­ers in Oc­to­ber 2025, such a large ad­just­ment would be very dif­fi­cult to im­ple­ment with­out sig­nif­i­cant­ly weak­en­ing growth," said the IMF mis­sion's con­clud­ing state­ment