Foreign Labour versus Bahamian Labour in The Bahamas

The imbalanced Bahamian labour market in The Bahamas

Foreign Labour vs. Bahamian Labour

By Jamal Moss

In the Bahamian labour market, a notable disparity exists between the wages and job opportunities available to foreign workers versus Bahamian nationals.  Foreign workers often occupy high-paying positions, while locals frequently find themselves in lower-paying roles or receiving significantly lower wages for similar job titles.

This imbalance can lead to economic inequality and social unrest, with Bahamians feeling marginalized in their own country.  Addressing this issue requires a multifaceted approach to ensure fair employment practices and opportunities for locals.

Possible Solutions

To address the misalignment between Bahamian labor market supply and demand, several measures can be implemented:

1. Skill Development and Training Initiatives: It is essential to develop targeted training programs that align with the qualifications needed for high-paying occupations in sectors such as tourism, finance, and technology.  By investing in skill development and certification programs, Bahamian workers can better meet the demands of these growth sectors.

2. Promoting Local Entrepreneurship: Encouraging local entrepreneurship can create more high-quality job opportunities for Bahamians.  Providing grants, low-interest loans, and business development services can support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), fostering economic growth and technological advancement.  Jean-Pierre (2022) highlights the importance of such initiatives in boosting local employment and reducing social costs.

3. Policy Review and Reformation: Policies should be re-evaluated to prevent foreign labor from directly competing with local workers.  Setting parameters for the employment of Bahamians and implementing quotas for foreign workers in specific sectors can help balance the labor market.

4. Public-Private Partnerships: Developing partnerships between the government and private sector can enhance internship and apprenticeship programs.  These partnerships can provide on-the-job training for Bahamians, bridging the gap between education and employment, and improving access to better-paying jobs.

By implementing these strategies, The Bahamas can work towards creating a more equitable labor market, ensuring that Bahamian workers have fair opportunities and are better positioned to contribute to and benefit from the country's economic growth.

References

Jean-Pierre, M. (2022). The education system of The Bahamas: The first quarter of the twenty-first century. In The education systems of the Americas (pp. 91-117). Cham: Springer International

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The Bahamian Brain Drain - By Jamal Moss>>>

The Bahamas Brain Drain

The Bahamas needs to improve its educational system to mitigate the brain drain and improve human capital

By Jamal Moss

Nassau, The Bahamas

Employment and Labor Market in The Bahamas

The challenges of Bahamian labor markets comprise various complex issues that affect the strength of its economy.  This article delves into three critical issues: brain drain in The Bahamas, wage employment of foreign workers to Bahamian workers in quality jobs, and measures to build up the middle class in the wake of taxation and inflation.

Thus, these issues are noted, and corresponding gradual commonsense changes are suggested, considering the nature of the Bahamian labor market and possible directions for its development.  First, I wish to focus on the brain drain problem affecting The Bahamas and offer incremental solutions.

Brain Drain in the Bahamas

The Bahamas faces the challenge of brain drain where educated and profound personnel migrate from the country to other developed countries where they are well rewarded.  The issue deprives the government of human capital, which is crucial in the country’s development process.  This situation is critical since high levels of unemployment, particularly among our youthful population, compel such brains to migrate in search of opportunities elsewhere.

The Bahamas has to promote educational opportunities, provide favorable working conditions, improve job procurement services, and encourage those who left to return home.  Our island nation has to retain talented people and attract gifted individuals necessary for the country’s development.

Every year, an average of 5000 students leave high school, and university graduates get to seek higher education in other countries.  Hence, there are not enough jobs or poorly paid according to their education level waiting for them.  The Bahamas should advance educational rights, demonstrate employers’ benevolence, and augment job assistance.  The Bahamas has to keep the human capital and draw skilled people, which is essential for the country's progress.

Incremental Solutions

The Bahamas needs to improve its educational system to mitigate the brain drain and improve human capital.  Financing in higher education institutions and vocational training centers will help provide quality education and training (The Nassau Guardian, 2023).

Having linkages with other institutions worldwide for exchange programs can help learners gain international benchmarks and retain talent by providing the best learning environment within their country.  Such an approach will enhance the quality of learning and place the Bahamian qualifications in parity with the international standards, making Bahamian graduates more marketable within and outside The Bahamas.

It is significant to establish a favorable working atmosphere.  Enhancing working conditions and pay will make local markets for jobs more appealing.

Bonuses such as medical coverage, pension and perks etc increase morale and, thus, worker retention.  This helps in enhancing The Bahamas government guarantee its professionals have access to such crucial benefits (Watson & Gustave, 2022).

By these possible commonsense solutions, The Bahamas can increase the attractiveness and support of its labor force so that it would not be tempted to work in another country.  Focusing on the staff’s growth and encouraging them to participate in various courses and seminars is beneficial and results in a more devoted and loyal human capital.

Another essential strategy is enhancing employment placement services.  Improving job placement and career counselling services will be necessary to match those graduating with appropriate jobs within the country.

People can use technological advancements to develop a central database for employment vacancies.  Encouraging Bahamians living in other countries to return home, tax relief, relocation allowance, and preferential employment would enhance recruiting qualified staff.

Other convincing cases regarding people becoming returnees may also encourage others to do the same, ultimately benefiting the country’s talent pool and overall progress.  We cannot continue to allow our young fresh minds to slip through our hands so easily like sand.  We must be intentional in fixing this leak. 

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Foreign Labour versus Bahamian Labour in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas - By Jamal Moss>>>

...the paradox of the migrant and the missing Bahamian worker in The Bahamas

The Missing Bahamian

By Jones Bahamas:


Life as it is experienced at the street-corner level in today’s highly urban-Bahamas conjures up a medley of competing images.
 
At one extreme, there is that widely held assumption that daily life in most of our heartland communities is all about crime, hustling and other such acts of deviance.

At another remove, there is that other lived reality where daily life as experienced in all its rawness and has to do with village life; people bustling about engaged in this or that money-making enterprise.

There is that popularly held notion that life at the community level in some of our heartland-communities amounts to an ongoing struggle by one faction [the decent, law-abiding and penurious citizen] against another, [the law-breakers]: thus the current police-led thrust of Urban Renewal 2.0.

What is interesting about these perspectives has to do not only with how each has been constructed by this or that interest group; but by what each somehow or the other manages to neglect or elide.

Each misses the fact that daily life in our heart-land communities and for that matter throughout our nation is marbled through and through with foreign workers – whether at the elite level as they are to be found as advisors to government, consultants and managers in the hotels and banks.

Evidently, foreign workers – legal and illegal alike- are to be found wherever there is a need for skilled workers; thus all those electricians, plumbers, masons, cooks, nurses, teachers, security guards who are gainfully employed.

Interestingly, some of these people are savvy enough, hard-working enough and disciplined enough and honest enough to not only hold down a job, but also fit and proper enough to send remittances home to their families.

Missing from these serried ranks is an untold number of Bahamian men and women; people who would prefer hustling, drifting here, there, hither and yon armed with complaint piled upon complaint as to what they had expected this or that administration to do for them in exchange for their vote.

We sometimes wonder about why when the hard times fall – practically everyone with a voice blames someone or the other for the myriad of woes experienced either by themselves or others.

This blame-game is all for naught. When it comes to blame, there is enough of the stuff and more for all who would wish to play the game.

Now think – if you will – about this: If you want a really good tailor – there is a Haitian or Chinese who can and will accommodate you. The same principle applies if you are looking for a really good chef: here you can readily find one who is from Belgium, France or another such European country.

If you want a really good maid to live in and do your bidding, hire a woman from the Philippines – and the list goes on for any number of other jobs and occupations.

Sadly, missing from the list are so very many Bahamians who might – if only they were ready, able and willing – to man more of these jobs, some of which are fairly well-paying.

Call this – if you will – the paradox of the migrant and the missing Bahamian worker.

The migrant population in the Bahamas comprises mainly of Haitians who settle for work, while others are from Cuba and Jamaica. There is also inter-island migration, chiefly to New Providence and Grand Bahama islands.

We have a situation where the qualified, hard-working migrant gets both the job and the work; whereas his Bahamian counterpart oftentimes wants the job and the pay that it brings; but could care less about value delivered for money.

One of the more cruel jokes currently making its way around this island and perhaps also around this archipelago has to do with a Bahamian man and his wife [both unemployed] living off neighbors, family, friends and Social Service who – when interviewed by a news reporter- averred that they wanted jobs, not work.

Both were convinced that a government job was just the ticket they needed.

They wanted jobs, but were clearly not looking for work.

By stark contrast, there are thousands upon thousands of other people – some of them living and working as so-called ‘illegals’ – each and every day apply themselves to the task of earning their daily bread.

Today we look in not only on these people’s lives but also on those of some of our people who believe that the world owes them something.

The day of the free lunch – if they did not know it – is long gone.

15 August, 2012

Jones Bahamas

Caribbean Blog International

As Labor Flexes its Muscles

The Bahama Journal Editorial


Today by way of this commentary, we wish to put in clearer perspective what we perceive as the political import of what seems to be an increased degree of restiveness on the part of so very many public sector workers.

On occasion, their main gripe seems to concern money. At other times, workers and their representatives seem to be preoccupied with matters germane to respect.

But no matter the reason or the season, the fact remains that, politicians always pay some kind of price whenever public sector workers become roiled and riled to that point where they say that, they are sick and tired of things as they are.

This is so because, unlike their counter-parts in the private sector, ministers cannot ignore the fact that when they step forward to bargain with workers, there is always some political element somewhere in the details.

That is why it is always so very instructive to understand the import of some of history's lessons.

We make this reference to the importance of history as we reflect on what is currently taking place on the industrial scene.

In a sense, what we are currently witness is a kind of macabre footnote to some of the demonstrations that took place in the late 90’s as the then governing Free National Movement faced the ire of a powerful cadre of workers.

It is to be noted that, today’s emerging labor situation seems eerily reminiscent of the situation and circumstances that existed in 1999, when the Free National Movement and its leadership found themselves challenged and openly disrespected by angry workers.

And so, with general elections on the horizon, it is anybody’s guess as to how things will pan out for either the governing Free National Movement or its political nemeses in the guise of the Progressive Liberal Party.

And for sure, even as we focus on the two major parties, we are acutely aware of the fact that, there are other forces – some of them allegedly and reputedly with deep pockets – who might yet have a decisively important impact on how things turn out.

In addition, there are other forces that seem poised to have some effect on the outcome of those contests whenever they take place. Here we reference, the role that might yet be played by workers in their guise as voters; and [yet again] as we have previously suggested, we have a background context where, for want of a more comprehensive understanding of what national development should be about; the Bahamian people and their leaders now wallow in a mire of despond.

And as they wallow, we have a situation on the ground where the hard men and women with guns in hand and murder in their hearts, are doing their thing.

We also know it for a fact that, history itself teaches that, workers can seat or unseat those in power.

Here we are quite certain that the power in this truism is not lost on either the governing Progressive Liberal Party or on its nemeses on the opposition side of the political street in The Bahamas.

As such, it should come as no surprise to any one that Bahamian workers are restive at this precise moment. This is surely due -in part at least- to the fact that workers are voters.

Evidently, too, with Christmas on its way; with a national economy that is in a parlous state; with utility bills as high as ever and with money as scarce as hen’s teeth; some of this nation’s workers are today as mad as hell.

Evidently, there is no telling how things will turn out for those who are governing and for those men and women who wish to take hold of the reins of power.

While general elections are still some ways off, the fact remains that workers know that – when the chips are down- they have a tremendous amount of power at their command.

Here we would advise all who would hear and all who would know that, they had better listen to the voice of the worker.

And while, we advise that those who lead and those who would lead should listen to the cries of the people; this is not to say that we are demanding anyone to yield to this or that insistent demand.

At the minimum, therefore, those who would take one position as opposed to another should explain themselves to the people.

Once this tack is taken, they can then let the chips fall where they may.
In the ultimate analysis, then, what makes this situation so very important is the fact that workers are voters. This means that whenever they wish, they can bring a government to grief and despair.

December 9th. 2010

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Foreign Workers on Bahamian Construction Sites

Foreigners on Bahamian construction sites
tribune242 editorial



THE DEBATE on the number of Chinese to be employed on the construction of the Baha Mar Cable Beach project -- six hotels, about a 100,000-square foot casino, a 200,000 square-foot convention centre, 20-acre beach and pool, 18-hole golf course and a 60,000-square foot retail village with additional residential products -- is going to be interesting, if and when it takes place on the floor of the House.

The number of foreign workers required by the Chinese as part of the deal is unusually large. But it is well known that the Chinese do not approve foreign loans unless their workforce is employed as a major part of the loan project. In the case of Baha Mar -- valued at about $2.5 billion - $1.918,965,693 billion has been negotiated with the China Construction Company as primary contractors. With that financial outlay it is amazing that government was able to negotiate any Bahamian presence. As Mr Ingraham said in presenting his resolution for this project to the House "the foreign labour component intended during the construction for the resort exceeds levels ever experienced in the Bahamas and is beyond anything ever contemplated by my government."

Under the UBP, construction up to a certain value was reserved for Bahamian contractors. Over that value it was agreed that Bahamians did not yet have the expertise or equipment to handle very large jobs and so those were left to foreign contractors, such as McAlpine, Balfour Beatty and others. In the 1950s, said Mr Ingraham, the government permitted 25 per cent of the labour force in construction and/or the operation of tourism development to be foreign.

During the Pindling era, however, the foreign labour component increased and newspaper articles recorded protests, either by foreign workers complaining of working conditions, or Bahamians questioning their presence in the Bahamas. For example, in 1988, 600 angry Indians went on hunger strike on the construction site of the Crystal Palace Hotel, Cable Beach. They accused the foreign contractor, Balfour Beatty, of treating them as slaves. Earlier - in 1981 - the Construction and Civil Engineering Union picketed the construction site of government's $66.5 million Cable Beach Hotel. "They import Filipinos to shovel sand. You tell me no Bahamans can do that?" complained a Bahamian worker. There were 40 Filipinos on that job site.

But the 1990 demonstration to protest the employment of common labourers -- truck drivers for example -- from Brazil on government's $55 million Nassau International Airport expansion was particularly interesting. The ratio of foreigners to Bahamians was 70 per cent on that construction site with government having to pay a large penalty if the number of Bahamians went over the agreed 139 or 30 per cent of the total work force. This prompted the carrying of placards that read: "It's Better in the Bahamas for Brazilians!"

At one point during the contract there were more than 340 Brazilians at the construction site, bringing the Brazilian count to 71 per cent compared to the 139 Bahamians that the company had agreed to use during this period.

The Pindling government had agreed that for every five Bahamians hired by the Brazilian company over the agreed 139 Bahamian workers, the government would have to pay $88,000 or $17,000 for each worker.

In the House on April 30, 1990, then Opposition Leader Hubert Ingraham revealed that the Pindling government had also agreed to pay all of the Brazilian company's Customs and stamp duties, work permit fees for their workers, and building fees on mechanical and electrical permits. In addition government was to pay all public utility fees -- connections and the like -- except for the actual electrical consumption.

The FNM found it preposterous that government would be penalised if more than 139 Bahamians were hired at the airport. "It is incredible that the Government has agreed to pay extra monies for Bahamians to work in their own country," said the FNM.

When the Ingraham government came to power its policy on foreign labour was established on the resort properties of Kerzner International -- the ratio of Bahamians to non-Bahamians on that site was not to exceed 30 per cent foreign to 70 per cent Bahamian.

And now here were the Chinese financially backing the transformation of Cable Beach into a mega tourist resort and asking for 8,150 of their countrymen to be engaged on the "core project". The projection is that some 1,200 Bahamians will be engaged in construction of the non-core projects.

Because of the unusual request for foreign labour -- 71 per cent foreign to 29 per cent Bahamian -- Prime Minister Ingraham has brought the matter to the House to give the Opposition an opportunity to express the opinions of their constituents on the matter. Both sides have to determine - in the words of Mr Ingraham - "whether this invaluable benefit of skills transfer and improved exposure to new technologies can or will occur in a project where contact between Bahamians and foreign experts is likely to be limited." Bahamians also have to decide whether in these lean years this project, with its foreign labour, is what they believe will jump start their economy.

September 28, 2010

tribune242 editorial

Bahamas Blog International

From Landholders to Landless Bahamians in The Bahamas

Bahamian workers need to be critically concerned about our land resources in The Bahamas, and how they are used in relation to national development

Transforming Landholders Into Landless Bahamians

By Charles Fawkes

Nassau, The Bahamas

19/03/2004

At this stage of our National development, Bahamian workers need to be critically concerned about our land resources and how they are used in relation to national development.  First, we need to be overly concerned about the use of the Quieting of Titles Act as a method of raping poor Bahamians of land they have had access to for centuries.

And secondly, there needs to be a critical examination of the extension of the Stafford Sands model of economic development which allows for the building of massive high rise hotels on each of our family islands coupled with a casino as instruments of development.  All successive governments to date including the current one have used this model of development, instead of being creative in the areas of manufacturing, technology, agriculture and the development of our marine resources.

Workers must shudder when they think about the gleefulness of Prime Minister Perry Christie’s approach of signing the countless Heads of Agreement that signs away so many acres of land when the ink quickly dries on these agreements.

This government is prepared to sign away 870 acres of land in Rum Cay, and additional acreage in Crab Cay.  In Bimini, there is the Bimini Bay development and the Bimini Bay Game Fighting Club by a Malaysian company.

In Abaco there is the Winding Bay development in Cherokee Sound and Island Fresh Dairy Ltd.  In the Berry Islands there is the Prestine Resort, Chub Cay and Whale Cay development.  In Cat Island there are several give aways of large acreage including the Hawk’s Nest and Orange Creek development.

In Eleuthera in the advance planning stages are two developments at Salsa Beach, plus at Half Sound, Winding Bay and Hatchet Bay.  All of these the current administration could sign away at the “ bat of an eye”.  In West Grand Bahama $2,150 acres of the old Sammons Bay are being considered and the beat goes on and on.

When our politicians announce these projects they tell us only about the thousands of jobs, but not about the transfer of land from Bahamian hands to foreign land grabbers and speculators.  Indeed, with these transfers we are transforming The Bahamas, but more importantly transforming Bahamians from landholders to landless people.

I have noted before in this column that too much of our land is already in foreign hands.  For example, the company of the late E.P. Taylor owns one tenth of New Providence, which he obtained under the UBP and has retained under the PLP.

The gamblers and the developers own Paradise Island, The Grand Bahama Port Authority controls 230 miles of Grand Bahama that has culminated in Freeport seeming like a foreign city.  There is an American company called Columbus Landing, which reportedly controls 75% on the land on San Salvador.

It appears that a great many of the Berry Islands are foreign owned and the same is true of the Exuma Cays.  The parties of the PLP and FNM/UBP have caused the best beaches and the best lands of the country to be in non-Bahamian hands with the result that most Bahamians will never own a piece of this good earth.

Additionally, all true Bahamian patriots are appalled by the provision of the Investment Incentive Bill (IIB) for its objectives are to promote the development of the Bahamas by granting the developers the right to control large acres of land, to levy duties and grant licenses.  In fact, the concessions granted to developers under this bill virtually set up a state within a state.

The end result of these two pieces of legislation is the same: Bahamians will be robbed of their land.  On one hand the IIB will result in Bahamian settlement being hemmed in or squeezed out by some foreign or local behemoth.  And on the other hand, under the Quieting of Titles Act (QTA) Bahamians have been robbed by the local land grabbers.  In fact if I were Attorney General, Alfred Sears, I would rename these two pieces of legislation The Land Grabbers Act.  The Quieting of Titles Act however, has cancerous effects on the land situation in the Bahamas.

This act, which came into effect on November 1, 1959, has turned out to be a nightmare –virtual scourge on the poor Bahamian worker who has been fortunate enough to become legally involved with it.  For the local lawyers, however, this Act has been a boon – a bonanza for this already bloated profession.  For the unscrupulous land grabber, it has produced the perfect situation for him to ply is trade and swindle the poor landowner.

This present lawyer dominated government is aware of the hardships the Act has inflicted on the Bahamian masses over the years, and the reasons why they have not attempted to rectify this unnecessary and unjust hardship are very strongly suspect.  This unfortunate piece of legislation was introduced by the UBP exploiters and presented in the House of Assembly by Mr. Godfrey T. Kelly.  The sated reason given for the Bill at that time was to enable persons who own generation property and other land, and who because historical reasons could not produce marketable title to be able to do so.  Prior to this informal arrangements regarding land transactions were common.

The hardship caused by the inability to produce good title was most severely felt in the Family Islands, but is was also thought by the ruling class at that time that the impreciseness as to land ownership hampers economic development.

Although a few workers benefited form this Act it is primarily used up this day, by the ruling class and other criminals to rob the poor unsophisticated and unsuspecting owner of his land, and the Pindling, Ingraham and Christie governments has made no effort to correct the practice.

This Act allows fake landowners to petition to the courts for Certificates of Title accomplished by fraudulent affidavits and sworn statements.  The petitioners on completion of the legal exercise are then granted land rightfully owned by others without the true owners knowing it, sometimes for years.

The court as institutions of the ruling class, are notorious for handing down decisions in land disputes in favor of the ruling class exploitators, the Higgs and Forbes land cases are glaring examples of this.

Legal transactions involving the Quieting Titles Act are lucrative and the Act is one of the bread and butter tools of the legal profession so to expect the average lawyers to protect the interest of the masses in this is like leaving the wolf to protect the sheep.

All the exploitaters like the owners of New Providence Development, the Grand Bahama Port Authority and Paradise Island etc. have benefited directly or indirectly from using this law.  The Port Authority was so ruthless in its land grabbing that adjacent landowners in Grand Bahama had to take up the shotgun to protect their property.

The worker facing a battery of high-powered lawyers, exorbitant legal fees and legal institutions are in a hopeless no-win situation.  In such confrontation the ruling class often sometimes winds up winning by default.  As I have attempted to demonstrate so often in these columns the average Bahamian in this country will never get justice, will never have institutions functioning in their interest, until they the workers control the country government in The Bahamas.  The land fraud phenomenon shows how well the institution functions to protect the monied class and those who are in power.

Charles Fawkes is President of the National Consumer Association, editor of the Headline News, The ConusumerGuard and the Workers Vanguard, Consumer columnist for the Nassau Guardian.