By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net 

LABOUR Director John Pinder said while he believes most companies have had to lay off workers due to decreased business from the COVID-19 pandemic, he thinks there are some who have been using the pandemic as an excuse to get rid of certain employees.

“I think there are one or two cases where there may have been employers who were terminated based on the fact that ‘I can right size now or downsize or get rid of persons I didn’t want during this time’,” he told The Tribune yesterday.

“And again, they have to comply with the Employment Act as it relates to severance pay where they have separation packages. I believe that is happening in one or two areas but for the most part, I have to say because of local business, employers are forced to make some decisions.”

Mr Pinder said this is why he encourages Bahamian workers to put their best foot forward every day. “I try to encourage Bahamian workers to do the best you can to make it very difficult for an employer to make that decision on you,” he said. “We live in a global village now so we have to make sure that we’re producing at the highest expectation possible.”

His comments come as mega resorts and other tourism businesses continue their process of terminating workers given the economic fall-out brought on by the pandemic.

Just last week, Baha Mar laid off hundreds of its workers in a move officials said was necessary to adequately align with projected business levels.

This comes after Tribune Business revealed last month the mega resort planned to terminate up to 20 percent of its staff - a figure that corresponded to around 1,100 to 1,200 workers.

Asked yesterday if he expects to see more layoffs in the tourism industry in the days ahead, Mr Pinder said he could not give a definitive answer as there is still much economic uncertainty due to COVID-19.

He said: “Well, it’s difficult to say if there would be more because everything right now depends on how quick the economy will open up as it relates to the airports and cruise lines.

“Everything is how soon can these people make some money, so everyone is waiting to see what kind of bookings they gone get (and) even if that point, it still will take some couple weeks.”

He continued: “But it also depends on how this COVID-19 turns out and whether we keep seeing increased cases and don’t come up with no cure or remedies to lower the cases. That may be another issue but The Bahamas government, in my view, is prepared to ensure that the necessary steps are taken to prevent persons from coming in with it and to prevent Bahamians from getting it.”

Last month, the Minnis administration began a phased re-opening of the travel industry in an effort aid the country’s economic recovery from COVID-19. However, in recent weeks, there have been concerns about a possible resurgence of COVID-19 due to travel resumption.

Mr Pinder said Bahamians must learn co-exist with the virus because the economy cannot remain stagnant for a long period of time.

He said yesterday: “There’s still a lot of negative talk about bringing people in so I go back to my original statement I made four months ago - we have to co-exist with COVID-19 and we can’t keep the economy shut down.”

With the country’s unemployment rate estimated between 30 percent to 40 percent, the labour director said he is hoping the economy will be able to rebound early next year. However, he said the situation will depend on the amount of cases happening around the world.

He said: “If it doesn’t continue to spread or it doesn’t increase in its spreading, then when the cold months come by, we should be in some position now to start getting much more bookings than we are receiving now.

“So, I say again, it depends on that but once things remain normal or come to some level of normalcy based on the control of the COVID-19, I believe that it’s safe to say that the beginning of next year we should see some things happening.

“...But, I think the Bahamas is one of the safety destinations you can come to right now based on the protocols we have in place to control persons visiting and based on the fact that we are able to manage this thing very well.”