The former Minister of Economic Development Zhivargo Laing is not so quick to believe that the rate of unemployment has dropped to 7 percent, as was reported by the Minister of Labour and Immigration Vincent Peet last week.
The minister had said that the figure is contained in a new report by the International Monetary Fund [IMF].
But in a statement that questioned the assertion, Mr. Laing, a member of the Opposition Free National Movement, countered that there is no evidence to support such a claim.
He pointed out that the IMF typically gets its labour figures from the statistics department of a country. The Department of Statistics’ last assessment of the labour force pegged the rate of unemployment at 10.2 percent.
“The fact is that unemployment in The Bahamas remains unacceptably high, with some islands like Grand Bahama, in particular, suffering even more than others,” he said. “While the unemployment rate may be dropping, it is doing so slowly and is likely to continue doing so until some of the government’s approved investments begin to earnestly have a meaningfully impact on the economy.”
Minister Peet was not the only prominent figure who quoted the IMF’s reported unemployment figure. The outgoing Governor of the Central Bank of The Bahamas Julian Francis also said on the Love 97 talk show “Jones and Company” that the unemployment rate had dropped from just under 10 percent to 7 percent.
At the time he also said that The Bahamas economy is growing by three and a half percent.
In 2003, unemployment was recorded at 10.8 percent, which was a jump over 2002, when unemployment was 9.1 percent and 2001, when it stood at 6.9 percent. Records kept by the Department of Statistics show that 1975 had the highest level of unemployment, which was 21.2 percent.
The department had also reported that the labour force grew by 1.4 percent in 2004 over the previous year increasing in size from 173,795 to 176, 220. Total employment grew from 154,965 to 158,635 in 2004, it was reported.
Both Minister Peet and Governor Francis pointed to the surge in investment activity around The Bahamas. The government has been aggressively pursuing anchor projects for each Family Island as a way of boosting economic activity.
But what Mr. Laing pointed out is that despite the government’s assertion that it has approved $4 billion in foreign investment over the last three years much of them have yet to have any substantial impact on the economy, especially as it relates to creating permanent employment.
He also referred to the appendices to the 2005/ 2006 Budget Communication that Acting Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt delivered in which the government said the rate of unemployment was 10.2 percent.
“Indeed, this would explain why in the Budget Communication, the Deputy Prime Minister never made reference to the unemployment rate. It would have been a highlight of the budget for the DPM to report an unemployment rate of 7 percent, which would have been one of the lowest in the nation’s history,” he said.
In the results of its survey of economic activity for the fourth quarter of 2004, the Central Bank noted that unemployment conditions are expected to be stable to firm on average and businesses that were surveyed signaled that the level of investments was likely to increase.
This amounts to an expected increase in economic stimulis from domestic investments alongside the anticipated boost from foreign investments, the report said.
“The Bahamas is viewed as a very promising, favourable, interesting environment today. It’s also viewed as a sort of haven against some of the concerns which many people on the outside of The Bahamas have regarding quality of life generally and issues like security and so on. And that’s one of the reasons why you have such strong interest in The Bahamas on the part of investors from a number of areas of the world,” Mr. Francis has said.
The debate over the unemployment figure came as the trade union movement was preparing in earnest for the annual Labour Day celebrations.
Mr. Laing said this year the celebrations will be somewhat suppressed by the thousands of Bahamians who remain without the dignity of work.
By: Tameka Lundy, The Bahama Journal
