As my friend Tal Rustle says, "you can't make this shiite up".

You need to look closer at the Cayman Islands model. The work permit has a 7 year shelf life. They must have an "understudy" in place before the 7 years is up. There is no minimum requirement as to when this understudy has to start.
But the way that they play the game, is that during those seven years, they send the permit holder on courses and conferences to train them up in STEP (Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners) or Compliance courses or ISO standards or something not originally listed in the qualifications of the original permit holder. At the end of seven years, they announce that the position has become redundant not requiring an understudy. Then they send the permit holder home for a couple of months, and create a new job with the listings of the old permit plus the qualifications that old permit holder gained during his/her tenure. The new job has a different title. They advertise & no Caymanian is available (there is worker shortage in most professional fields in the Caymans). Then the perfect candidate applies, and they get the job. The other option, is to have the applicant apply for permanent residency during the seven years, and it is usually granted. It is fast-tracked if the person comes in through the business-building Cayman Enterprise City.
All this to say, is that Cayman recognises that having more qualified professionals for a long term increases business, jobs and the economy.

I know the Fitch guy who did the rating. They knew that we didn't have the money to fix Dorian. With climate change, they are cognizant that another big hurricane could hit and we would still be behind on Dorian. Some of the southern Family Islands still have not had the infrastructure rebuild when it was destroyed years ago. They also know that we are operating with a huge debt with razor thin margins for deficits. The financial health of the country is tenuous, and hence tourism the economic pillar that NAD services is vulnerable. Look at the 20% hit after Dorian. They were just being realistic, while our government is not.

This man and his ilk represents what's wrong with a lot of Bahamians who eye the expat professionals working in our midst. It is the Bahamian attitude of being crumb-catchers at the rich man's table. We want a piece of the pie without trying to bake it.

It is wrong to think that any person can be trained to take over a job in a few years, from a certified professional who has gone to a good school, has 20 years experience, has numerous additional courses and certifications along the way, and operates with extensive knowledge, and then expect a trainee to take over. We can't replicate the experiences that created that knowledge worker in a few short years.

It reminds when I worked a trading desk. We were getting new carpets in the office, and two of the carpet installers stood behind me as I worked at my computer. One turned to the other and said "Imagine gettin' a high payin' job by pressing buttons all day. Man, if I knew what buttons to press, I'd have it made". I was trading financial instruments called derivatives. Pinder has an equally uneducated view as the carpet installers.

The key to success is to open the field up, give work permits out like candy at Halloween. These professionals would come in, create value and businesses which would result in higher paying jobs for Bahamians, a revitalised economy, a diverse economy and better prosperity for all in the country, including more revenue for the government.

Instead we insist on being gatekeepers locking the door, keeping us in the dark ages, and keeping us a Third World country. Professional work permits should be cheap, the only impediment to deny one, would be a criminal record, and they should be good for a long period of time.

Unfortunately, idiots like Pinder and other government types are too intellectually-challenged to understand the economics of this. Labour unions are parasites who feed off those in Bahamian society who can least afford it -- the poorer workers.

LOL

No impact on crime at all in Canada.

Cannabis legalization has had little impact on crime, disorder: Calgary city police

https://calgaryherald.com/cannabis/cann…

Now this is a prime example of Bahamian stupidity and the narrow-minded tunnel vision of the John Rolle and the Central Bank. They are sitting on a tool that could open up the entire Bahamian economy. It could put our currency back into the ballpark of hard currency and make us player in international trade.
Why not bring Exumians into the modern digital age and become world leaders? They are not forward thinking enough to create a B$ to USD$ exchange digitally and make us entrepreneurs in global finance and trade.
There is no hope even if we have an opportunity to lead the world.

>Simply paying higher wages for the same low level of productivity in a lousy business environment only results in job layoffs, a higher cost of living and further contraction in an already severely distressed economy.

This is totally true. To grow the Bahamian economy, Foreign Direct Investment must create economic drivers that causes the money to stick to the Bahamian economy, instead of shipping the profits to foreign headquarters. This never happens for things like tourism which creates low level service jobs while maximising Return On Investment for the foreigners who ship all of the newly created capital out of the country. There is little economic offset for low level service jobs.

The Bahamian economy must be diversified to economic activities that allows re-investment of profits into the local economy and infrastructure. How? We must open up the closed Bahamian economy to professional & technical people and businesses, to make it dead easy to come and start a local business with an international scope. Our Ease-of-Doing-Business is atrocious. Our restriction of professional services to Bahamians kills entrepreneurial activities. Our government is notoriously archaic and inefficient while the mandarins believe that they hold the keys to wisdom and economic knowledge.

There is a model that we can follow, but we are too stupid to follow. Take a look at Cayman Enterprise City. A business can be established, with work permits for all, within 48 hours, and no import duties for a year. Over 100 businesses have been created in the Cayman Islands in the past year, employing Caymanians in non-service jobs. Throw out the bureaucracy, open the doors, bring in a breath of fresh air with new talent, and new businesses and join the world in free trade, commerce, and innovation. But alas, we are too stupid to see the answers right in front of us. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. But it won't be done. We are just too ignorant of modern economics and our politicians are too ego-driven and proud. Moving quickly in the right direction is not a Bahamian cultural trait and thus we remain unenlightened.

@moncurcool Yes it is true that there is a 7 year rule for work permits, but that doesn't result in more work for Caymanians. During those seven years, the employers send the workers on training courses and various certifications courses, upgrading their skills to the point where they no longer fit their original job description. At the end of 7 years, there is a re-organization and the original job is made redundant and upgraded to another similar position, but with the requirement of the courses and certifications that the existing permit holder has taken in the past 7 years. Since technically it is not the same job, there is no requirement for a Caymanian to take their place, because the job doesn't exist anymore. I know of a Cayman company that has a department with 9 people and 5 of them are now promoted to Head of a sub-department. (Head of Client Management, Head of Discretionary Trading, Head of Algorithmic Trading, etc). They all started there as regular employees but were made department heads just before their work permits came up for renewal. They don't have people under them, but they are now department heads, and have project management certifications to prove it.

Nope. Cayman has launched over 150 blockchain companies, most in Fintech without such government 'interference'.