The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

AS the country continues its economic rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, Immigration and Labour Minister Keith Bell said his ministry is working on several key initiatives to get more Bahamians back to work.

While he did not reveal what those initiatives included, Mr Bell reiterated the Davis administration’s commitment to creating more jobs for unemployed Bahamians and further re-opening the economy.

He also said the ministry’s upcoming job fair, which will be held in partnership with Sandals, was just one of many projects in the pipeline.

He said: “You know the honourable Prime Minister and this government when we campaigned, we indicated that we would create jobs and we would open the economy and we will certainly look to boost investment and we have done precisely that.

“The job fair partnering with Sandals... was just the beginning of many other initiatives that we’re doing in the Ministry of Labour. I comment on the private sector, particularly Sandals. Everything went extremely well.”

This comes as dozens of British Colonial Hilton employees are expected to be engaged by Sandals when the Hilton closes its doors later this month.

“I cannot give you the numbers yet, but I anticipate from what I’ve been advised from the director of labour is that everything went extremely well and we anticipate that Sandals would take on a number of employees,” Mr Bell told reporters yesterday.

“As it relates to the job market, you would see from investments that we’re doing now. You would see that we’re open for business and we have capitalised on that and as we continue to open the economy, we are seeing more and more investors and businesses continuing to open up and we’re working very, very closely with the Ministry of Finance to ensure that however we could help businesses to grow and develop.”

Pertaining to the nation’s unemployment figures, the minister said officials are still working to gather statistics in that regard.

Last year, he had estimated the country’s unemployment rate to be somewhere between 25 and 30 percent.

“We’re working very closely and we’ve been in discussions with our Department of Statistics and unfortunately, we have not made as much (headway) as we anticipated we would’ve done by now,” Mr Bell said.

“But I give you the assurance that as soon as we make some headway to get the true accurate statistics in terms of employment and who’s actually going back to work, I will advise you accordingly.”

After the economic fall-out from COVID-19, the Minnis administration said it would cut back on issuing new work permits in a bid to tackle unemployment.

Asked if the Davis administration was going to take a similar position, Mr Bell replied: “Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I think we’ve even gone further where the honourable Prime Minister merged the Department of Labour with Immigration.”

“So, if the Labour Department issues certificates or denies them, then certainly it can’t be where the Department of Immigration is issuing work permits so the two departments go hand in hand and they’re working really good together.”