PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts.
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
THE Progressive Liberal Party embraced the newly released Labour Force survey results over the weekend, using the numbers that showed a slight decrease in unemployment to defend the legacy of the Christie administration.
“These figures represent further empirical evidence that the PLP did the heavy lifting and laid a firm and strong foundation of progress on which to build,” PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts said in a statement on the newest job figures.
The labour force survey results show the unemployment rate dipping below ten per cent for the first time since the Great Recession in 2008, falling by 1.7 percentage points from 11.6 per cent to 9.9 per cent in April compared to the results in October 2016 when the survey was previously done.
The results show that no sector experienced a greater boost in employment than the civil service, which experienced a 29.2 per cent increase. The Minnis administration has pledged to take a more conservative approach to public sector hiring than its predecessor, placing a freeze on hiring in the civil service and expressing a willingness to fire some contract workers they deem burdensome.
The PLP has been critical of this approach, expressing concerns that dismissing public service workers will cause the economy to contract and possibly result in a recession.
Mr Roberts said the employment numbers show that 39,505 jobs were added to the economy between May 2012 and May 2017, 7,770 of which were added in the last six months of the Christie administration.
“This is the largest jobs expansion by any government administration in any five-year term,” he said. “The daunting challenge facing the FNM administration is to continue this positive pro-growth trend. It is unfortunate that the incoming FNM administration has started off on a losing wicket with its mass firing exercises while blaming it all on the PLP. The PLP accepts that more must be done for our people. We note that with an unemployment rate of 9.9 per cent just prior to the 2017 general elections, there are still some 20,000 unemployed people with more than 5,000 students graduating this year and joining the labour force. The FNM government has its work cut out for it.”
The Minnis administration did not react to the labour force survey results before press time yesterday, though an official said a response would come today.
The labour force survey was conducted between April 24 and April 30.
According to the survey, the unemployment rate in New Providence was 10.4 per cent; in Grand Bahama, it was 12.4 per cent and in Abaco it was 7.8 per cent.
“The private sector absorbed most of the new jobs since November 2016,” Senior Statistician Cyprianna Winters said Friday. “However, when examined by industry, the ‘community, school and personal service’ industry which includes the civil service, police service and the domestic services posted a 29.1 (per cent) increase in employment; hotels and restaurants posted a 26.2 per cent increase and construction posted 20 per cent increase.”
The unemployment rate among youth (ages 15-24) remained “considerably higher than any other age group,” Ms Winters said, though “there was a slight decline in the rate from 25.1 per cent in November 2016 to 24.1 per cent.”
The statisticians introduced a new category for public consumption in this year’s survey: the vulnerable employment category.
“These workers as defined by the (International Labour Organisation) are less likely to have formal work arrangements, and more likely to lack decent working conditions and are often characterised by inadequate earnings and benefits,” Ms Winters said.
This category includes people who have contracts allowing them to work for limited durations.
According to the statisticians, 8.2 per cent of employed people in the Bahamas fall into this category.
“During the period 2012 to 2017, the share of workers in vulnerable employment was fairly stable and ranged from 7.0 per cent to 9.2 per cent of the employed labour force,” Ms Winters said. “The percentage of men in this category was higher, although the percentage points differences between men and women were fairly small.”
The inclusion of this category comes after critics have for years complained that the surveys, typically done twice a year, are inflated by the inclusion of temporary job holders. In recent years the surveys have coincided with the presence of the carnival festival and hurricane clean-up efforts, events that often lead to temporary employment.
The statistics show that 16,370 people are considered vulnerable in this year’s survey, the most for a May survey conducted over the past five years.
The latest survey also shows that discouraged workers, people who did not look for work because they believed no jobs were available, have declined by 8.8 per cent.
Comments
Reality_Check 6 years, 8 months ago
Repost - Of course the unemployment rate dropped - just think of the many thousands of voters that the corrupt Christie-led PLP government put on the public payroll in the run up to the last general election! 'Vote buying' using the public payroll (a/k/a bribery or election fraud) was in full gear before the general election. Certain former PLP Ministers known to have been heavily engaged in this illegal practice during the six-month period ahead of the last general election should be held accountable and responsible for the abuse of their public office and the public trust. Taxpayers have already lost millions of dollars because of this criminal conduct on the part of certain former PLP Ministers and stand to lose millions more in the future as it will take time for the new government to undo all of the costly job padding that was done throughout the civil service work force in an effort by the PLP to 'buy' the election using our tax dollars.
Well_mudda_take_sic 6 years, 8 months ago
All Bradley Roberts is doing here is confessing that the corrupt Christie-led PLP government engaged in election fraud by heavily padding the civil service work force in the run up to the last general election. The PLP's effort to 'buy' another 5 year term using millions and millions of our tax dollars is unconscionable and represents a most serious abuse of public office and the public trust by the former PLP cabinet ministers and others who were behind this illegal scheme. The last PLP government had no economic basis or rationale whatsoever for further bloating what they (and the entire country) already knew to be a grossly bloated public sector (civil) work force.
TalRussell 6 years, 8 months ago
Comrades! I seriously doubt any of this would meet with Pindling's stamp of approval?
Even if the PLP is salvageable as a political party to be reckoned with in the years ahead - there is no denying that it must begin the long process of rebuilding the party from 'outside the party" and without involving one of the Chief Stalwarts architects most responsible for calling the 2017 General Election's campaign shots that left the party all but extinguished with but Four-House of Assembly seats, and saddled with $1.5 million in debt. Why the PLP can even think they're in any kind of a political position to be holding an October 2017 National Convention .... well it baffles da mind - considering this is the same PLP who couldn't get around to organising a National Party Convention from the many years between 2009 to 2016? { Even "Big Bad," shouldn't have the bullocks to make this one up? }.
banker 6 years, 8 months ago
I don't believe the figures. I think that the systemic unemployment/under-employment rate is over 20% of the working population.
It's going to be very difficult in getting a low human capital workforce back to work. In the global scheme of things, low end jobs are disappearing at an alarming rate due to technology and efficiencies gained by it.
Recently, I checked into a Swiss hotel and did it at a kiosk without a human present. It spit out a magnetic card that was my room key. No human clerk necessary. Late at night, I heard a noise outside my door, and I took a peek. A Makita vacuum robot was going up and down the halls at night. I was surprised to see the same logo that you see on cordless drills, on a vacuum robot. The same hotel had a Savioke Dash robot that would deliver food to your room, and it could even navigate the elevator by itself. I didn't want to try it because the prices were exorbitant mini-bar prices for snacks -- out of this world, but the machine was taking jobs from humans.
When I pull into a gas station at home in The Bahamas, I am amazed at the number of attendants. There is a gas station down the street from me in my new city off island, that has no humans and it is open 24 hours a day, and you can charge an electric vehicle at it.
I am willing to bet that both Atlantis (and Baha Mar if it doesn't collapse) will see more mechanization and technology and a smaller head count. And we will all be in trouble with massive unemployment.
I am surprised that this government, the most forward-looking in a long time, is not taking strategic steps to future-proof the country. People are the most important things. Once they get rid of the sub-human PLP scum and lock them up for life, they should concentrate on the massive people/education/employment problem that no one is talking about. I realise that they are coming out of a deep chasm created by PLP criminality, but there doesn't seem to be an overall strategic plan, or a need to hurry to fix things.
John 6 years, 8 months ago
@ banker:: what do you want the government to do? Start a war like Trump is trying to do and kill off those you refer to as low human and sub-humans? You are the dirtiest form of human being that thinks no life except yours have value. You and those that have your dirty, nasty thinking ways. Your plans will fail! The earth was created for mankind and not just one set of man. And it was not created for machines and robots. They are tools to help man but will never replace him. God will destroy the earth before he allows that to happen.
concernedcitizen 6 years, 8 months ago
Actually man is going to kill mankind and maybe the earth in a blood bath over who has the "real" fictional sky god ,,that or man made pollution
banker 6 years, 8 months ago
I didn't realise that God was afraid of robots as well. After all, according to your belief, if we all become psalm-singing robots, praising Dear Leader God, he will not smite us and burn us forever in a hell that violates the laws of thermodynamics.
The march of technology is upon us. Who knows if it will take us to good places or bad. But I can assure you -- if you read the news at all, you will realise that robots will eliminate up to 40% of all jobs in 12 years ( http://fortune.com/2017/03/24/pwc-rob...">http://fortune.com/2017/03/24/pwc-rob... ) -- study done by Price Waterhouse Coopers reported in Fortune magazine. No amount of praying for rapture or hoping for smiting by virtual entities will change that.
Education is the key, but unfortunately some Bahamians such as yourself, have been so negatively value-programmed that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them think.
You can pray all you want, and contribute money to charlatan preachers who drive Bentleys and get smashed to smithereens in private jets, but that een gern change what will happen in the next 10-20 years.
Here's the rub for employees in the hospitality industry that will be replaced by technology -- there is no tipping of robots. The hotel in Lausanne that I was in, advertised that fact. And a $10,000 robot is much cheaper than a $25,000 a year human who has to go to the bathroom and takes time off and gets lazy. The robot works 24 hours a day. Like it or not, this world is already upon us, and I een seen no god-smiting yet.
Reality_Check 6 years, 8 months ago
@John: In reading between the lines you smell to high heaven of having very racist leanings my friend. You can be rest assured I won't be reading anything else you post to this website in the future. Small men with small minds are never very interesting in any event.....I will leave it for you to tickle others of your kind. Cheerio.
DDK 6 years, 8 months ago
However accurate or inaccurate these jobs figures are, this horse's derriere is bragging about adding unnecessary jobs to the Government payroll in a pathetically obvious attempt to buy votes.
realfreethinker 6 years, 8 months ago
I haven't read the article above,but coming from Bradley I know it's nothing but bullshit.
realfreethinker 6 years, 8 months ago
The only thing that can vindicate the plp is if they disband that corrupt party and send the rest to jail.
Clamshell 6 years, 8 months ago
What could possibly vindicate that hideous shirt he's wearing? I wouldn't feed that rag to my goat.
OMG 6 years, 8 months ago
At what cost you corrupt idiot. You hired anybody and everybody ( PLP SUPPORTERS) qualified,unqualified,simple and othwise and drove the country into debt. You should be ashamed.
Well_mudda_take_sic 6 years, 8 months ago
My sentiments exactly!
Porcupine 6 years, 8 months ago
Second that.
Honestman 6 years, 8 months ago
Misleading headline by The Tribune. It reads like a statement of fact but it is merely Roberts' propaganda designed to delude the uneducated. Anything Roberts says must be ignored - he and the PLP at large have lost the right to engage the populace in discussion about the health of the country. I just hope the electorate NEVER forgets how close these criminals came to destroying The Bahamas. Roberts should sit small like his "dear leader" Christie. This is the time for honest men and women to step up and rescue this Nation. What a job Minnis and his cabinet have been given thanks to these f*ckers.
realfreethinker 6 years, 8 months ago
They can't get away with that crap anymore. Bahamians have been enlightened. He and his party is nothing but garbage juice.
Sickened 6 years, 8 months ago
Garbage juice! LOL! Stink!
John 6 years, 8 months ago
@reality check.. you cut from the same cloth that refers to Bahamians as subhuman and animals. You are the ones trying to integrate racial discord and disharmony where it don't exist. Go's good riddance to you and your kind!
OldFort2012 6 years, 8 months ago
@John, what Banker is describing is happening to all mankind, not just Bahamians. There is nothing racist about it. Robots are equal opportunity job takers.
banker 6 years, 8 months ago
John doesn't have a worldview to realise the march of technology and the current state of mankind.
My new job is to trade securities, and even my new job is not safe from the march of robots taking human jobs. Here is a story from Financial Times:
Robots enter investment banks’ trading floors
UBS among the banks looking to AI to boost traders’ performance
https://www.ft.com/content/da7e3ec2-6...">https://www.ft.com/content/da7e3ec2-6...
John 6 years, 8 months ago
If money could buy status, Donald Trump would be in the White House
John 6 years, 8 months ago
First off I am quite aware of the technology that is being developed to replace human labor. Some will be successful and some will create more complex problems. My issue with banker and those that befondle her is her reference to Bahamians as low life and subhuman. Hey that is the language they used to authenticate slavery. And her implication is that technology is being developed to replace slaves and so the "low human capital " will be lower than robots. Guess she will also be falsely accusing them (robots) of rapes too. May God help us!
SP 6 years, 8 months ago
NOTHING will ever vindicate corruption!
The majority of the electorate couldn't give two pinches of puppy poop about A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G Pillage Loot Plunder Chairman Bradley "gargoyle" Roberts has to say.
This one eyed gargoyle has yet to open his fly trap with a statement condemning alleged corruption of the three recent Pillage Loot Plunder bank lane shufflers!
G-O A-W-A-Y & S-T-A-Y G-O-N-E!
Porcupine 6 years, 8 months ago
Those who see what is coming regarding AI and technology replacing humans are correct. Yet, that is only part of the story. The future will reward those with the skills to become self sufficient. As in growing your own food, building, fishing and providing for their family while those who have placed their hopes on the almighty dollar saving them from punishment perish. There will be other changes in the world that will be simultaneous with the the predominance of robots. We have mistakenly believed that we can truly control and contain nature. The day of reckoning is coming, but has nothing to do with a god, or gods. We squandered the very real opportunity for human enlightenment by worshiping money and consumerism. Humanity has reached a perilous point in time. Have some humility you successful world travelling businessmen who lack callouses on your hands. Your time is coming, perhaps sooner than you think.
banker 6 years, 8 months ago
Totally agree with you there. If you take a look at the austerity measures that Greece had to implement, what it did was impoverish hundreds of thousands of pensioners and others in Greek society. And how are they managing? By growing their own food on small plots. Here is a reference:
Greek Villagers' Secret Weapon - Growing Their Own Food http://www.businessinsider.com/greek-...">http://www.businessinsider.com/greek-...
I am reminded of old Mr. Ferguson in Exuma. (If you take a taxi in George Town, you will run into him.) Every time he eats an orange, he plants the pips in his yard. Same with lemons, avocado pears and pretty much anything with seeds in it. I never knew that there are tiny seeds in pineapples just under the skin. He is pretty much self-sufficient. His neighbours make their own homemade ginger beer in those plastic cola bottles. They make a wonderful pasta dish from kerbs or West Indian Chiton that they pry off the rocks at low tide.
Knowing how to live off the land that you come from definitely pays dividends when it comes to survival.
TalRussell 6 years, 8 months ago
Comrades! It's big stretch to compare the financial crisis in Greece to that of Bahamaland's inconvenient financial setback.
The current red government will never implement measures that will touch certain protective business establishments and class of people.
Minnis and KP, don't seem have have a problem being mean to the poor and the near poor - by refusing to remove VAT from 'Breadbasket Items.'. These are the very people who work themselves to the bone for the types elite people the reds most favour.
John 6 years, 8 months ago
Trying to see y'all here trying to defend racism and bigotry or watching Fox trying to defend the president from the same thing #fail
banker 6 years, 8 months ago
by banker
John 6 years, 8 months ago
"While technological developments will cause greater automation, a decrease in headcount or slow growth in hiring in some areas, it will actually create a lot of jobs too, according to Manpower.
But the key to this is to make sure the world's workforce "upskills" to be qualified enough to take on new positions. Companies need to invest in their workers to make sure they are not being left behind.
"We are seeing the emergence of a Skills Revolution — where helping people upskill and adapt to a fast-changing world of work will be the defining challenge of our time. Those with the right skills will increasingly call the shots, create opportunities and choose how, where and when they work," said Jonas Prising, Chairman & CEO at ManpowerGroup."
proudloudandfnm 6 years, 8 months ago
There is no way in hell unemployment is 9%. Sell that crap to someone else....
Obviously the other 20% have not filed as unemployed.....
TalRussell 6 years, 8 months ago
Comrades! The many thousands either going without paycheques, or worry when their next paycheqe will be their last paycheque - has get all confused when they read statements likes - out paycheques workers has been lowered to 9%. ........ But maybe the Red Cabinet Ministers are talking about all the Red Shirts Party Loyalists - who got appointed to Chair and Serve on them 108 Government Boards? In fact, I am so informed that Others have been appointed to paid political positions - who's names and salaries- have never been made public?
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