The Cabinet of Antigua and Barbuda has approved a sweeping set of reforms to the country’s work permit system, designed to expand access to job advertising for local workers and tighten approval protocols for foreign labor applicants. The policy changes were announced Thursday by Director General of Communications Maurice Merchant during a post-Cabinet press briefing, following a detailed presentation from the Labour Commissioner and senior staff at the One Stop Employment Centre (OSEC) on the current state of work permit application administration.
Merchant told reporters that Cabinet members raised consistent concerns that open job vacancies across multiple sectors are not currently being advertised to the broadest possible pool of local job seekers. To address this gap, the body agreed that targeted, stricter measures are required to boost both transparency around open roles and public access to information about available employment opportunities. The reform push comes in direct response to growing internal concern over repeated requests to bring in foreign workers for positions that Cabinet leaders are confident can be filled by qualified residents of Antigua and Barbuda.
“Cabinet feels that there is something drastically wrong with that process because they believe that locals can assume those positions,” Merchant told reporters at the briefing. He specifically called out the prevalence of import requests for low- to mid-skill roles that are commonly held by local workers, including nannies, cooks, and other general labor positions, questioning why these applications are being submitted at all when a local workforce is available.
Beyond expanded job advertising requirements, the new rules will also tighten the origin requirements for work permit applications. Merchant noted that under the current system, a significant share of applications are submitted by foreign individuals who are already physically present in Antigua and Barbuda. Going forward, new policy will mandate that all foreign applicants must submit their work permit applications from their country of legal permanent residence before traveling to Antigua and Barbuda to take up employment. Only after it has been confirmed that no qualified local candidate can be found to fill the open role will a work permit be approved, according to Merchant.
Cabinet also confirmed that additional layers of scrutiny will be applied to high-risk work permit categories, most notably applications for domestic workers. Under the new protocols, employers seeking to hire a foreign domestic worker will be required to formally justify their need for an imported employee and provide verifiable proof that they have the financial capacity to meet their contractual wage and benefit obligations to the worker.
Senior government officials emphasized that the full package of reforms is rooted in a core goal: strengthening protections for the local Antigua and Barbuda labor market while guaranteeing that qualified native and resident workers get the first chance to apply for and accept every open position available in the country.