By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

IMMIGRATION and Labour Minister Keith Bell has estimated 800 people turned out for a job fair hosted by the Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort and Spa and Department of Labour.

On Saturday, the department partnered with the resort to host the job fair to fill 300 positions at Sandal’s New Providence and Exuma locations.

When he spoke with The Tribune yesterday, Mr Bell called the job fair a resounding success.

He said Sandals is set to employ more than 800 people — the bulk of which will be existing employees who have been furloughed since the resort’s shutdown in March 2020 brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr Bell said the recruitment will result in an “automatic reduction” in the country’s unemployment rate.

 “Sandals is going to be hiring 850 employees,” he said. “Those numbers, as I am advised, include persons who were previously employed there who were (furloughed). And so, they are looking for 300 new employees; 200 new employees for the property here in New Providence and 100 additional employees for the property in Emerald Bay. I was there with the general manager and their executive team and they told me they were impressed, so I think they are going to actually expand that number.”

 Mr Bell said the job fair had a fairly large turnout and hundreds of people were interviewed. He also said although the event was scheduled to begin at 8am and end at 4pm, organisers had to “extend” the time due to the volume of people who attended.

 “At the end of the day when they were ready to close down, they still had about 200 more persons,” he added. “But in total I would estimate the crowd to be about 800 persons who came applying for jobs. We are planning on holding more job fairs in the future because that is the way to go. We have a labour bank already and so really that’s a part of our role; exposing Bahamians to these opportunities after they become available.”

 Mr Bell said there are several investments the Department of Labour was “looking at”. He said once those projects “come on stream”, the public will see the “job market opening up” and the department will host more job fairs to ensure the people in their labour bank who are looking for jobs are given the opportunities to be gainfully employed.

 While the Sandals career fair focused on jobs in the tourism and service industry, Mr Bell revealed that the Department of Labour will also “target a number of other areas from across the board.”

 “Me and the director (of labour) along with his team, have a meeting right now to discuss perhaps looking at one or two other areas, now that I’ve seen how (the fair) works and how it has been very successful,” he said.

 “We want to make sure to put the right people in the right place to make sure that they are doing the right thing that they want to do. So obviously we are going to have to look at other areas and reach out to them to see how we could best, with the government systems, ensure that they fulfil what they want to do.”

 Speaking to the demographic of persons who attended the fair, Mr Bell said some of the attendees were “more than qualified” for the positions for which they were applying.

 “As a matter of fact,” he continued, “I met two young persons who wanted to be bartenders and when I looked at their applications, one of them had seven BJCs and a number of BGCSE and the other had very similar qualifications. And so here it is, they wanted to be bartenders, now if that’s what they want to do fine, but certainly, I sought to encourage them to perhaps look at another area that may better suit their qualifications.”

 Several industries were impacted by COVID-19 and thousands of people lost their jobs at the height of the pandemic. Now that the country is slowly returning to some level of normalcy, Mr Bell said he is optimistic that the country’s unemployment rate will continue to decrease.

“More opportunities are becoming available and I am aware of several major projects that have already commenced and they’re looking to hire people. The job market is opening up. “. . .And that goes not just for Sandals, but a number of places are now opening up. And as a government, we are looking at opening up a number of other places, even those that are operated by the government, including the Straw Market. Obviously, it’s being talked about, so I anticipate that and I’m pushing to get it fast to make sure that people are able to make an honest living and ensure that people can go back to work when these places open.”

 Sandals Royal Bahamian in New Providence will reopen in January after undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation.