By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

Minister of Labour and the Public Service Pia Glover-Rolle said the number of discouraged workers in the labour market “remains too high”.

Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Mrs Glover-Rolle said the ministry aims to bring discouraged workers back in the work force through training and education.

She said through initiatives like the National Apprenticeship Programme and partnering with local tertiary institutions workers will be able to further their professional development and raise employment levels.

“I must note, the rate of discouraged workers remains too high that we want to bring them back into the workforce. We also want to continue to bring the unemployment rate lower. And both of these goals can only be accomplished in training and education to enhance the employability of segments of our population that are currently unemployable,” said Mrs Glover-Rolle.

“Fortunately, through our expansion of offerings to the National Training Agency through new initiatives like the upcoming National Apprenticeship Programme, to partnerships with local tertiary level institutions like BTVI and University of The Bahamas, and through conversations with international universities… we can develop effective professional development, soft skills development and workforce readiness programmes and certificate courses to raise the employability levels of our labour force.”

The Bahamas National Statistical Institute (BNSI) revealed this week that the national unemployment rate fell to 8.7 percent in the first quarter of 2024, down from 9.9 percent in the previous quarter, as part of its new quarterly labour force survey.

The BNSI report also revealed that youth unemployment also saw a decrease, dropping from 20.5 percent to 18 percent.

The labour force participation rate stands at 73.8 percent overall, with men participating at a higher rate (78.2 percent) than women (69.8 percent).

The number of discouraged workers stands at 10,800, concentrated mainly in New Providence. These individuals are available for work but not actively seeking it due to low prospects of finding employment.

Mrs Glover-Rolle also announced yesterday that the second draft of the labour legislative reform will be ready in a “few weeks”.

The draft will then be sent to Cabinet for review and approval.

“The second draft will be ready in a few weeks. The draft will be sent to Cabinet to review and approval so that we can move forward with drafting the legislation and getting feedback on the draft from our various stakeholders,” said Mrs Glover-Rolle.

For labour relations, Mrs Glover-Rolle said there is an “open door” policy with union leaders and the department does not with to “air issues in the media”.

“We’ve made major improvements in our approach to social dialogur, and our labour reform process is well underway. Where there are issues or concerns as they will be, we encourage all stakeholders to reach out,” said Mrs Glover-Rolle.

“We have an open-door policy, and in addition to our regular quarterly meetings, we continue to converse with union leaders. We don’t wish to air the issues in the media. We want to talk with you as professionals, and we want to work with you and keep making progress for the benefit of Bahamian workers.”

Members of the Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union are expected to participate in a strike poll yesterday.

Union president Deron Brooks said the union was facing a number of issues with the government and the strike vote would focus on outstanding hours of overtime pay for officers.

Mr Brooks said the court recently ruled in favour of the union concerning outstanding hours of overtime pay for officers, to date he said that government has not addressed the issue.

During his contribution, Opposition leader Michael Pintard encouraged the Davis administration to adopt a “sense of urgency” with addressing the dispute with customs officers.

“Many of our Customs officers are waiting since February for their overtime payment. Many of them lack transportation to effectively carry out their job,” said Mr Pintard.

“Many retired persons are brought back and given responsibility in the line over others who are waiting for their opportunity to be promoted and to be reclassified. And so we asked this administration to move in a sense of urgency to address the customs issue.”