By Ken Richards Recently on assignment in the Caribbean

	Hearing first hand how Caribbean people are coping

In these capitals, as in others in countries across the region, government and people are trying to find ways of minimising the effects of the global recession on their economies and populations.

Barbadians appear to have adopted the 'grin and bear it' strategy while trying to get on with business as usual.

But maybe that's because they are not feeling the pinch quite as much as, say, their Antiguan counterparts who are a lot more forthcoming about the hardships they have to endure.

In St Vincent and the Grenadines the government is promoting what it describes as its good management of the economy.

But in the local Kingstown market many a housewife speak of the increasingly high cost of ground provisions and products on the supermarket shelves.

Then of course there are the tough utility bills that are proving a real headache for some.

In all three Caricom member states, the impact of the recession is being felt by the population at large, but more acutely by those in the lower income bracket
constantly struggling to make ends meet.

State of the economy

From 18th to 29th May, I visited the islands of Barbados, St Vincent and Antigua, to get a sense of how people in these islands are coping with the recession.

From the Governor of the Central Bank in Barbados, Dr Marion Williams, I heard that the economy there is managing to cope.

	Barbados Central Bank Governor predicts continued negative growth

However she acknowledged that there has been 'negative growth in the first quarter of the year' and that it will be the same for the rest of 2009, especially if the recession doesn't ease up.

In Barbados and St Vincent, the consensus was that employment levels have fallen 'slightly but not significantly so far', unlike other states such as Jamaica and the Bahamas which have reported higher levels of layoffs.

In Antigua, the government concedes that at least 500 people have been made redundant out of a total workforce World Facts and Figures puts at 30,000 (local estimates put it between 20,000 and 25,000).

The word from the Antigua Hotels and Tourism Association is that revenues have dropped by about 30 percent so far.

Recession Victims

Barbara Lyne is an Antiguan who, until last December, worked at the Sandals Resort on the island. She had been with Sandals for 18 years.

Barbara recalls being told just before Christmas last year that she was being laid off.

At the moment she's running a tiny shop she has set up to try to make ends meet.

"All the hotels are laying off now, so I'm just holding on ... I'm coping okay, not doing too badly," she told me.

	Former Sandals cook Barbara Lyne has now become self employed

Like Barbara, Jenny Holloway of Barbados was also in the hospitality business.

She was called in to the boss' office at the restaurant where she worked, and to her dismay informed that she was being let off because things were slow.

Off the job since February, Jenny says she's coping by doing "a little self-employed something on weekends ... chicken and chips, fish and chips to keep some money coming in".

'Surviving' is how she sums up her situation.

Jenny also says that there are growing numbers of workers in Barbados losing their jobs and that she saw several 'new people' claiming benefits at the unemployment office recently.

Professionals not spared

Joining that queue is veteran Barbadian journalist Patrick Ward who felt the axe when his employers at Starcom Network laid off some 35 workers.

He too pointed to other sectors of the economy sending people home as well: "It is going on throughout every sphere in Barbadian society."

Commenting on his own situation, Patrick told me jokingly that he is on holiday at the moment, but then reflected more soberly that he has to start looking for a new job.

He would prefer staying in the media, but faces the possibility of having to settle for employment elsewhere.

Counting the pennies

At the Kingstown market in St Vincent most people I talked to were complaining about the 'high price' of fruits, vegetables and other foodstuff.

One man told me that on top of the food prices being high "you have to pay 15 percent VAT and sometimes the poor people cannot cope with it".

	At EC $8 a pound, the price of fish attracts many complaints

A concrete example given by another housewife is one of limes, used for a large amount of food preparation in Caribbean homes, costing one dollar EC (eastern Caribbean) before the recession were now being sold for EC$2-4.

Early on during the Barbados leg of the trip, I learned that the goods on the supermarket shelves there had gone up.

Denis Clarke, who heads the National Union of Public Workers, referred to a significant increase in his own food bill.

He also related having seen people at the supermarket leaving back certain items in the trolley because they just couldn't pay for it all.

What the leaders say

And of course I got an earful about the 'high utility bills'.

The leaders too were agreeing that there is a problem.

'People are hurting', Antigua's Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer told me.

Mr Spencer said his government was attempting to put measures in place to try to give the economy a boost.

"The impact has been severe, we have attempted to do a couple of things to try to stabilise the situation but it is still very much up in the air," Prime Minister Spencer said.

His Vincentian counterpart Dr Ralph Gonsalves told BBC Caribbean that the electricity bills in particular had created serious problems because of the dependence on oil (diesel fuel).

Nowhere was that more clearly demonstrated than in the Antiguan capital St John's.

People are hurting....the impact has been severe   Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer

I found the house of one middle-aged man in total darkness one night.

He told me the next morning that his electricity supply had been cut two weeks before, and that he was struggling to pay the outstanding bills.

Business as usual?

In all three islands I visited there is an appearance of business as usual.

	In search of bargains at the local market

But many of the people I spoke with admitted that they were hurting even while trying to maintain some semblance of normality.

Trade unionist Dennis Clarke in Bridgetown told me that Barbadians can't just throw their hands up and give in to the global economic crisis and the high cost of living.

"If Bajans don't spend, it's going to create more chaos. You've got to spend," he insisted.

It's a policy being pushed by the administration of Prime Minister David Thompson in its bid to mitigate the effects of the credit crunch.

Successfully riding the recession is a key priority for not only Barbados, St Vincent and Antigua, but the entire Caribbean region.

Listen to the BBC Caribbean Report special on the recession