By Annelia Nixon

anixon@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation is concerned about the cost of doing business after the National Insurance Board revealed that unemployment payouts have increased by 25 percent, totalling around $940,000 last month.

The BCCEC will conduct labour surveys as it remains “concerned with the cost of doing business and any impact this is having on the labour market”.

“We will be conducting our labour survey with members to understand those areas of concern and the exact impact that these challenges have had on employment, prices, revenue and expansion efforts so that we can continue to drive public policy and inform decision-making through the use of empirical data,” said the BCCEC.

The BCCEC said they enquired about the increase in unemployment payouts and came to the conclusion that part of the reason was “as a result of furloughed hotel workers, as this is the traditionally the slower period in the hospitality industry”.

Darin Woods, president of the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union agreed adding that many hotels have closed recently, including so and so which closed so and so and so and so that is reopening so and so. Dr Tami Francis, deputy director of New Providence Operations and Actuarial Services at NIB, told this newspaper that the closure of a few hotels across The Bahamas contribute heavily to the increase. She listed numerous hotels including the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the Ocean Club and Sandals Emerald Bay which recently closed for renovation and conversion into a Beaches-branded resort.

In discussing hotels shutting down and as a result having to let people go, Mr Woods asserted he is not worried about the economy. He doesn’t believe the health of the economy is a reflection of what is going on in the hotel industry. He stated that this is the typical slow season and the only other thing further feeding a decline in tourism, currently, is the US presidential election.

“So typically when there’s an election, the american travellers really don’t travel like that and also over the past for three years or so we were really benefiting from the lockdown, from the COVID-19 and so you found a resurgence in persons travelling around this peak time, which was always an off time for us. And now the things are kind of normalising you find people are now going back to what they used to do before. They’re not travelling and like I say, because it is an election year, you will find that less people travel during the election. They hold on to whatever disposable income they have so that they could see exactly what happens after the election.

“The veracity of the slowness right now is as a result of the US election. We believe once we get past October into November, there’s a surge for the travel for Thanksgiving. It tapers off and then it picks back up in December and once it picks up in December, around about third week or so, in December, it normally carries straight through to spring break, to the summer months, and then we back to the same ritual. So you looking at about effectively maybe around nine to ten months when there’s a real high occupancy in terms of hotels, and then it tapers off for another month or eight weeks or so, six weeks thereof.”

The chamber added: “We encourage NIB to conduct education and awareness campaigns for employees and employers to understand the impact of these and other changes ongoing in the department to ensure proper adherence and compliance. The BCCEC welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on the same.”