The first year of full free movement among four CARICOM states points to a scheme that works but remains small, and raises fresh questions for a Jamaica that needs builders but has yet to sign on.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, 9 October 2026, Jamaica remains outside the Caribbean Community’s full free movement arrangement as it marks its first anniversary, even as the island’s reconstruction is held back by a shortage of skilled hands. CARICOM said this week that 939 nationals were processed between 1 October 2025 and 31 July 2026 in the four member states taking part, Barbados, Belize, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines, under a regime that lets their nationals remain indefinitely and work without a permit in one another’s countries. The figures were reported by Caribbean National Weekly on 7 October.
Small numbers, steady start
The regime was launched on 1 October 2025 under the Enhanced Cooperation Protocol, a 2022 amendment to the CARICOM treaty that allows a group of member states to move ahead of the rest. Beyond entry and the right to work, it gives nationals access to specified services. CARICOM said the 939 total includes some people who were already living in the participating countries before the regime took effect. Barbados accounted for most of the activity, with 918 applications processed, while Dominica processed five and St Vincent and the Grenadines facilitated seven. The national figures are counted in different ways and do not add neatly to the regional total.
CARICOM’s Assistant Secretary-General for the Single Market and Trade said the experience of the four states “demonstrates that Free Movement works”, and CARICOM said their progress and lessons could help guide other members preparing to join. The country reports also identified areas needing more attention, including registration, data collection and management, monitoring and reporting, and public awareness. In July, after the regional summit in Saint Lucia, Barbados’ Prime Minister said fewer than 1,000 people had used the regime, and leaders said Grenada and Saint Lucia were taking steps to join.
Where Jamaica stands
Jamaica has said it supports full free movement but has not set a date. In 2024, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade said Jamaica would join once the necessary legislative and administrative framework was in place, and when the four states launched the regime last October, the Prime Minister said legislative, administrative, health and security measures were still being put in place, the Gleaner noted in a July editorial. That editorial said there was little evidence of the technical work needed for the transition, and observed that migration within the region has largely flowed out of Jamaica rather than into it.
The builders Jamaica cannot find
The link to housing is direct. With unemployment at about 3.5 per cent, the Prime Minister told a conference in New York in April that importing skilled workers was a question of when rather than if, warning that labour shortages could derail rebuilding after Hurricane Melissa, the Jamaica Observer reported. He said Jamaicans would be trained and put first, and that any foreign labour would come with skills transfer. At the same event, David Mullings, chief executive of Blue Mahoe Capital, said the shortage of skilled labour had become a major problem for developers, and that a major affordable housing developer had identified it as the key obstacle to further investment.
In June, a Government senator and veteran trade unionist told the Senate that shortages of carpenters, masons, steel workers, electricians, plumbers and finishers could stall housing and infrastructure work even where funding and contractors were in place, according to the Observer. Housing programmes, roadworks, tourism projects and post-hurricane repairs are all drawing on the same pool of tradespeople.
That is where free movement and Jamaica’s property market meet. A regional labour market with clear rights and simple paperwork is one possible way to ease pressure on construction sites, alongside training at home. It is also a route Jamaica has already committed to through its treaty obligations, which the Gleaner argued should be pursued before recruitment from outside the region.
A region that moves
Caribbean families have long crossed water for work, and many Jamaicans have settled in other member states. Free movement, at its best, turns that habit from an exception into a right. The first year’s figures suggest the change is happening quietly rather than as a wave, which may reassure governments worried about pressure on housing and services, and disappoint those hoping for a quick answer to labour shortages.
What to watch
The next tests are whether Grenada and Saint Lucia complete their accession, whether the participating states close the data and registration gaps the reports identified, and whether Jamaica sets out a timetable of its own. For Jamaica’s builders, developers and households waiting on repairs, the question is practical: whether a larger regional pool of skilled workers arrives in time to help the rebuild, or whether the country continues to rely on a domestic workforce that is already stretched.
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