By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The government’s top labour official is projecting that various “anchor projects” will return The Bahamas’ jobless rate to “single digit” levels by the end of 2022.

John Pinder, the director of labour, told Tribune Business that multiple developments planned by the cruise lines, as well as The Pointe’s completion in downtown Nassau and the rebuilding of Baker’s Bay Golf & Ocean Club will lead the inroads into an unemployment rate that has been driven to at least 30 percent by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“By 2022 we ought to be back into single digit unemployment; the end of 2022,” he argued. “There are a number of anchor projects on stream. There’s a huge project in Grand Bahama with Carnival’s cruise port, and Royal Caribbean and ITM at the Grand Lucayan.”

“There’s the Disney project in Eleuthera, there’s the opening of The Pointe, the hotel down on West Bay Street, and with Baker’s Bay being rebuilt there’s jobs there. We should be able to put a dent in the unemployment rate. In addition, the digital jobs that have proven successful during this pandemic ought to encourage more more Bahamians to get into the digital economy.”

Mr Pinder also identified fisheries, farming and the country’s natural resources as areas that The Bahamas had failed to exploit economically and were potentially ripe for investments by residents. “We have miles and miles of ocean that have not been fished,” he argued.

Calling on Bahamians to target niche markets and particular crops in agriculture, the labour chief also called on local entrepreneurs to invest in value-added food chain services such as canning, processing and packaging.

Some of these initiatives have been tried before, and it is unclear whether all the projects listed by Mr Pinder will eventually materialise - at least on the timescale he has identified - given that a number rely on the cruise ship industry that has been particularly hard-hit by COVID-19.

The Bahamas’ nationwide unemployment rate finally dropped below 10 percent, but just barely, in the November 2018 Labour Force Survey. However, it jumped back into “double digits” subsequently and likely increased further as a result of the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Dorian on Abaco and Grand Bahama prior to COVID-19.

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis previously said the unemployment rate due to the pandemic was estimated at 30 percent, while Dion Foulkes, minister of labour, said it could have gone as high as 40 percent.