By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

LABOUR Minister Dion Foulkes says he doesn’t agree with the position that companies should offer employees redundancy packages as a form of assistance to struggling workers.

Last week, Labour Director John Pinder told The Tribune he has suggested to some employers the need to offer severance pay to workers who are experiencing hardship due to COVID-19.

However, yesterday outside Cabinet, Mr Foulkes said while he understood the reasoning behind the suggestion, it was not something he would advise, pointing to the current economic climate.

“That’s a double-edged sword,” the minister said when asked if he agreed with Mr Pinder’s position. “There are many businesses that have temporarily laid off their staff.

“If they offer redundancy or pay them out severance pay, their employment will be terminated and there is no hope of them going back to work.

“The government is hopeful that the persons that were laid off for example at Atlantis and Baha Mar and now at Sandals, the majority of those persons are coming back to work and they are able to have gainful employment for years to come.”

He continued: “Now I understand why some persons want to be terminated to get the redundancy pay because the economic situation is dire now and people have to take care of their families. I get that and the government understands that, but it has to be a balance.

“The (emergency) order makes provision for redundancy not to be paid outside of 30 days after the order ends. The current order ends at the end of May so we are not sure what’s going to happen after May, but at least until that period businesses will not be mandated to pay redundancies.

“Now certain companies are paying redundancies and terminating employees, but that isn’t something that I would advise for employers to advocate for because it terminates their employment, and I don’t think this is an environment where you would want to be without a job.”

Mr Foulkes also said it is difficult to accurately state the country’s current unemployment figure.

Mr Pinder has estimated the unemployment rate is between 38 to 42 percent.

“The workforce in The Bahamas is approximately 220,000 workers,” Mr Foulkes said. “The last unemployment assistance number was around 28,000 or 30,000 – the unemployment assistance programme that National Insurance does in terms of the assistance the government is giving it’s around 28,000 or 30,000 persons.

“Now if you figure that in terms of percentage it will come down to a low percentage compared to 220,000 workers but that is not the right way to do it because you have structural unemployment and there are a lot of other things that go into calculating what the unemployment rate is.

“But since the pandemic started, I am confident based on the evidence that we see in the economy that the unemployment rate has drastically come down because as you know everything was at a standstill and most of the businesses they put their workers on temporary layoffs.

“That has now changed. Most of the people are coming back to work so it’s very difficult to peg a percentage upon that.”