By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said the Government has already begun rejecting work permit renewal applications for expatriates who have received approvals “consecutively” for the past 10 years or more.

Keith Bell, minister for labour and immigration, told reporters ahead of the weekly Cabinet meeting that his ministry has been “scrutinising” renewal applications to detect those where qualified Bahamians are willing and available to do the job. Officials are also assessing whether employers have identified Bahamian understudies to be trained up to take over from expatriate staff once their work permits expire, and how many renewals have previously been approved.

“As I would have indicated in a number of press statements, the Immigration Department processes in excess of 30,000 work permit applications every year and, of that number, approximately 15,000 work permits exist [are issued]," Mr Bell said.

"And there are a number of trends which have come to light, one being where persons are continuously having their permit renewed and there are, in these instances, there are qualified Bohemians. And the Government policy has remained unwavering in that where a qualified Bahamian is available, then a work permit ought not be issued.

“Secondly, where a work permit is issued, there is supposed to be an understudy. What we have found in a number of cases is that sometimes the Bahamian who is supposed to be the understudy does not know [they have that responsibility] or there is one Bahamian understudy for a number of persons on work permits," the minister added.

“And so, in those instances, we have seen that some persons have had up to 10 to 15 work permit renewals. And obviously the concern remains..... the Government policy is that when you have 20 work permits consecutively then you're entitled to apply for permanent residence of the country. Once you obtain permanent residence then, after five years, you're entitled to apply for citizenship to be considered by the Cabinet.

Mr Bell acknowledged that The Bahamas' population and workforce will never be large enough to meet all the country's skills and employment needs but, notwithstanding this, “the time has come for us to review our policy and to ensure that Bahamians continue to remain first in this country".

Asked to confirm that the Government is serious about its work permit renewal stance, given that previous administrations have made similar utterances to little effect in the past, Mr Bell said: “The fact of the matter is that we’ve already started. I will not necessarily wish to single out any individual, but many persons would know that we have already started this policy, and it is not necessarily only at the low end, but it is also at the high end, impacting a significant number of high-end individuals.”

Addressing the controversy surrounding the recently-released Labour Force Survey, which Kwasi Thompson, former minister of state for finance described as a "smokescreen" that covers both the shrinkage of the workforce and number of employed Bahamians, Mr Bell said he stood by the reduced 8.8 percent national unemployment rate.

Comparing the May 2023 findings with those from four years ago, Mr Thompson said data from the Bahamas National Statistical Institute (BNSI) showed that during this period the workforce has seemingly shrunk from 237,525 in the May 2019 survey to 219,465 now - a drop of almost 8 percent or just over 18,000 persons.

Similarly, Mr Thompson told this newspaper that the number of employed Bahamian workers had also shrunk over the same period - by almost 7 percent or just over 14,000 persons, falling from 214,890 to 200,175 today.

Mr Bell, in reply, said: “I think that the honourable Member of Parliament, he sought to mislead, deceive and spoke a half-truth. The fact of the matter is you have to look at the overall number and, when you get to the overall number you're talking about, it is out of 100. Even if that number was 20, we're talking about 200,000 people.

“And I would submit on the contrary to what the Honourable Member of Parliament had to say, the reality is that it is even that much more significant because we went through a pandemic, and we went through a hurricane and so you had a number of persons - because of the actions of the former administration - leaving the country or were displaced. And so the fact that you're going to have an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent, it is even more significant.

"Because in this short period of time, this administration, this Davis-led administration, has been able to lower the unemployment rate. And so you have to look at the overall number. And you have to then take into account how many persons have been employed. That is the fact that is it; it don't go no further."

Mr Bell estimated that the unemployment rate under the previous Dr Hubert Minnis administration to be as high as 40 percent, but does not have any concerns about nearly 18,000 people vanishing from the Bahamian workforce between 2019 and 2023. “The Department of Labour is undertaking research to determine what went on,” he said.