By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Sixty-five thousand under-employed workers exposes why so many Bahamians are struggling to cope with the cost of living crisis and make ends meet, the Opposition’s finance spokesman said yesterday.

Kwasi Thompson, the east Grand Bahama MP, told Tribune Business that the January 2025 Labour Force Survey confirms the economy has not been expanding fast enough following the post-COVID reflation to create sufficient jobs that absorb the estimated 5,000-plus high school leavers entering the workforce every summer.

Speaking out after the survey revealed more than 30 percent, or almost one out of every three Bahamians currently holding a job, are deemed under-employed and seeking to work more hours, he warned that this nation’s employment issues “will not be solved by the Government alone” through merely adding to the public sector payroll.

Asserting that the private sector must be the primary driver of job creation and economic growth, Mr Thompson told this newspaper that it was critical for the Government to “remove all red tape” that Bahamian businesses and foreign investors presently endure to obtain the necessary approvals for their projects to proceed.

Noting the multiple government agencies, each with their own processes, that Bahamians and foreigners must deal with, he pledged that - if elected - a Free National Movement (FNM) administration would “fast track investments to move them from the approval stage to the shovel-in-the-ground stage and job creation stage”.

The Opposition finance spokesman, who said the Bahamas National Statistical Institute (BNSI) report showed the Bahamian economy lost 5,571 jobs between the 2024 third quarter and January 2025, described the 52 percent increase in the number of unemployed workers during that seven-month period as “very troubling”.

“The information, as I said, is really devastating for the country to digest,” Mr Thompson told Tribune Business. “The information, with respect to the under-employment, is very, very troubling. The difficulty with the under-employment is you have thousands of folks who are working and they are not fulfilling their full potential.

“That full potential is what the country needs to move forward. That’s what the country needs for greater economic growth. The other challenge with under-employment is that is why we have so many folks complaining about the cost of living. That is why we have so many folks complaining about the wages they are earning. That is a serious challenge.”

The Institute, in its January labour force survey, found that of the 214,725 persons employed at that time some 65,225 were only partially - and not fully - employed and seeking to work additional hours to increase their earning capacity. “Of those employed, 65,225 individuals were under-employed, that is working part-time while wanting additional hours,” the report said.

Mr Thompson’s argument is that not working a full-time job or full 40-hour work week has only increased the pressures imposed on many Bahamian workers and their families by the post-COVID inflation and price hikes that fuelled the ‘cost of living’ crisis. Without the security provided by full-time incomes and wages, many have struggled to pay all their bills in full and on time.

Meanwhile, the east Grand Bahama MP noted that Bahamian youth unemployment has always been stubbornly higher than the national rate after January’s report pegged joblessness among 15 to 24 year-olds at 20.9 percent. This means that more than one in five Bahamians seeking work cannot find it.

“We must pay close attention to our young people to give them the hope that is necessary,” Mr Thompson told Tribune Business. “The report just reinforces what the Opposition has been saying for some time, which is we don’t have sufficient growth to provide for those folks coming out of school. We don’t have sufficient growth to provide all the necessary jobs that Bahamians require.

“We have thousands of folks coming into the job market every year, which means the economy has to be pushing forward jobs to accommodate them. They’re not going to survive the loss of 5,000 jobs. We are seeing evidence that the economy is not growing fast enough...

“The problem will not be solved by the Government alone. We have to have additional private sector employment, and what we need for additional private sector employment is to remove all the red tape businesses have to go through.”

To get investment projects approved and moving, Mr Thompson said both Bahamian and foreign entrepreneurs are frequently required to obtain permits and approvals from multiple government agencies including the likes of the Bahamas Investment Authority (BIA), Town Planning Committee, Department of Environmental Planning and Protection (DEPP), and Department of Inland Revenue.

“All these departments have different approval processes,” he added. “We must be able to fast track investments to move them from the approval stage to the shovel-in-the-ground stage and job creation stage. That is where this government has failed miserably.

“Too many investments have stalled, too many investments have been delayed. That is a major issue Bahamian investors and non-Bahamian investors are confronted with. If you have billions of dollars in investments, were is the reality of those billions of dollars in investments? We must be able to move the approval of billions of dollars in investments to shovel-in-the-ground ready projects.”

The Institute’s survey said: “The total number of unemployed individuals in January 2025 was 25,925, with females making up 51.3 per cent. Among the unemployed, 6,960 were youth aged 15 to 24 years, almost evenly distributed by sex.

“The unemployment rate for January 2025 was 10.8 per cent. The female unemployment rate was higher at 11.2 per cent, while the unemployment rate for males, 10.4 per cent. The youth unemployment rate was 20.9 per cent, with the unemployment rate for young adult females at 21.7 per cent and for young adult males it was 20.3 per cent.

“Nationally, women aged 20 to 44 and 45 to 54 were more likely to be unemployed than their male counterparts. By contrast, men aged 25-44 were slightly more likely to be unemployed when compared with women within their same age cohort.”

Some 106,480 persons were found to be “outside the labour force”, likely meaning persons who were between jobs in January 2025, stay-at-home parents and others. Of this number, some 3,720 or 3.5 percent were identified as “discouraged workers”, meaning they are part of the potential labour force but not actively looking for a job.

That 3,720 said they had given up because they were “tired of looking for jobs” or there were “no jobs in the area’. Others said they either lacked experience or there were no available job openings to match their skills, while some alleged they were viewed as too young or old by employers.

“There were 25,520 young people (aged 15 to 24 years) outside the labour force, accounting for 23.9 per cent of this group. Among these young adults, 11,870 were males and 13,650 were females,” the Institute’s survey found.

“The total labour force in January was 240,650 individuals: 121,565 males (50.5 percent) and 119, 085 females (49.5 percent). The overall labour force participation rate was 76 percent. Males had a higher participation rate of 80.4 per cent compared to 72 per cent for females.”