Opposition: WP increases threaten local jobs
(CNS): Both the opposition leader and his deputy have said budget forecasts imply that work permits are set to increase beyond the number of jobs that government believes will be created over the next two years. Ezzard Miller and Alva Suckoo said the revenue earnings government is predicting from permits reveals that more local workers are under threat from a surge in foreign workers. The opposition members said the increase in forecasted revenue in the budget from permits outstrips the number of jobs government claims it will create over this budget cycle.
During the budget debate on Wednesday and Thursday, Miller and Suckoo both raised the issue that the significant revenue expectations from work permit forecast in this budget paints a worrying picture about the number of jobs that will be created and who will be taking them. In his address, Miller raised the point that the numbers in the budget documents don’t match the claims made by the government frontbench in speeches in several areas, including the issue of employment.
“They claim they will create 1,790 jobs through the provisions in this budget,” Miller said. “However, the figures in the budget also say they intend to increase work permit revenue from $66.4 million in 2017 to $70.7 and $72.5 million in 2018 and 2019.”
At an average cost per work permit in 2017 of $2,656, this means work permit numbers over the two years are going to increase by more than 2,400, significantly outstripping the 1,790 jobs which government said will be created for locals over the next 24 months.
“What that means is that 657 Caymanians currently employed will lose their jobs to work permit holders so government can collect the revenue,” Miller warned, adding that government was making no provision in the budget figures for the hundreds of high school and college graduates who will be looking for work over the next two years.
He said the budget indicated government was planning to increase work permits for the revenue but not opportunities for local workers. Given that, he said, government’s claims to be developing a national human resources department would be “an exercise in futility”, adding to the “frustrations of Caymanians” looking for work. Miller said that until government is prepared to deal with a reduction in the number of permits, Caymanians will continue to be unemployed.
He called on government to stop growing the population through permanent residency and Caymanian status because each year the percentage of generational Caymanians decreased.
“This means that the influence of new Caymanians over the economic and political forces that govern the country becomes stronger each year,” he said. “The opposition believes this trend needs to stop.” One way of stopping it, he suggested, was is to amend the Immigration Law and “reduce the grant of Caymanian status to only two methods: by marriage and descent of Caymanians”.
The sentiment was echoed by Suckoo, who said he agreed with that call. The time has come, he said, to seriously consider that as a policy option. He pointed to the multiple challenges surrounding immigration and labour and the importation of poverty through cheap labour, as well as the amount of people scamming the immigration system one way or another.
He spoke about the increase in cases of people trafficking and labour agencies and local companies exploiting and using workers who have been trafficked from developing countries.
CNS has also learned that reports have been made to the immigration department that there are several people currently in Cayman who have been trafficked from certain countries by international criminals and loan sharks. It is understood that these traffickers are manipulating Cayman’s temporary work permit system to get their human cargo into the country and in jobs where they are forced to pay up their wages to the traffickers, who threaten the lives of their families in their own countries.
After we made enquiries to immigration, having received reports from some local people who have tried to assist victims of the traffickers, the immigration department confirmed that it had received some anonymous complaints of possible human trafficking occurring within the Cayman Islands.
“Our enforcement arm of the department is actively investigating these leads,” officials said in August, as they cautioned against further comment because of the seriousness and sensitivity of the matter and potential interference with ongoing enquiries, but stated that further information would be released if the matter progressed. Suckoo stated that as far as he was aware, the immigration department was still investigating the allegations.
The opposition member for Newlands also pointed at other scams being perpetrated against immigration and the exploitation of employees, which was less evil than the people trafficking but nevertheless contributed to undermining opportunities for local workers and depressing wages. He said that Cayman was still addicted to cheap labour and the addiction was fuelled by government’s own desire to earn revenue from permits.
During his contribution on Thursday morning, he said work permit revenue at June 2014, the first year of the Progressive-led administration, was just over $47 million but in 2019 it is forecast to be over $72 million, representing a more than 53% increase in five years of PPM government.
Suckoo challenged the premier’s position that when work permit jobs are created jobs for local are also created, and asked if the fortunes, working conditions, salaries and opportunities for local workers over the last five years had advanced as much as the government’s revenue from permits.
Category: Government Finance, Jobs, Local News, Politics
Shouldn’t this work permit issue be addressed by the Premier ? Is Immigration under his leadership ?
Maybe the think the economy is expanding and employment across all sectors will increase, this is a good thing not a bad thing, duh.
Maybe “the” should consider that an expanding economy must be regulated to ensure it benefits the people of the country…”duh”
Okay I made a typo. BFD. I might be a poor candidate for a secretary, but you will always be a donkey.
Just FYI I do not have a background in the ‘secretarial arts’, but I do have degree in economics. And in a-hole spotting.
Here’s an idea. To gain more revenue verses increasing work permits, cut ALL MLA salaries by at least half. Please tell me why our MLAs need such big salaries? Truth be known, they really do not work any harder than the average worker in the Cayman Islands.
I wish l was reading balanced opinions that were rooted in facts instead of bias and hatred. There is no question that the government MUST ensure that qualified Caymanians come first in job selection and that the education system prepares the future and current working force to take every position possible. Are companies taking advantage, yes. Are qualified Caymanians denied jobs? I am sure it occurs, corruption exists in every corner of the Earth. So is the solution to stop all work permits and limit permanent residency through two stringent avenues? Not to mention the lovely idea stated in a earlier post that we measure the country expats come from to see if their values match those of Cayman and that countries with little violence and moral decay. So let’s see: United States out (same sex marriage, one of the world’s highest prison rates so signal of crime), ah Britain out, definitely Jamaica out (yeah to many ), and list goes on. So all those banking sectors pouring millions in Cayman gone, health professionals gone, teachers gone, technical workers gone. Yes opportunities are now wide open for every Caymanian to get a job! Problem solved! Wake up man l am tired of narrow thinking! It’s time the government fix up the educational system including having technical college. It’s time parents teach children values and live them instead of talking about foreigners eroding values, the cable and internet that many of the children feed on without supervision as done more harm. Many permanent residents are hard working contributors to nation building. The great countries of this world could not survive without others with skills taking residence. Talk to Cayman Airways, Fosters who do they get the most revenue from. Plead to the government to think clearly and stop spreading hate, bias and pure madness.
11:40pm Question? Who were the people who charted the future for the Cayman Islands? During the 1960’s through the 70’s Caymanians were the pilots and directed the good ship, only after permits, status and PR, we were sidelined. Are you one of those well wishers, who has plans to put us on reservations? Well, it is coming close to that day well all hell will break loose.
What happens in other Caribbean Islands or Bermuda? Why a permit is not just a permit, which expires?
There is always a squak about the law. How about us having one that shadows the one in New Zealand, which disallows expats to purchase houses there? Is that a good idea? Who is going to hirea lawyer to fight that like PR?
What garbage are you talking about expats not being able to purchase a house in NZ? That is not true. They can. And they can work towards residency in NZ and then Australia. Get your facts straight. As to Cayman well you shot yourselves in the foot. A work permit should just be that. Cut out the residency bull. The island is too small to accommodate all and sundry. NZ is an exception. It is also a small island but there are more sheep than people there for a reason!
I don’t believe being on a work permit for any length of time should give you a path to PR much less citizenship. The island is really too small yet so many who come here to work, make a life here (forgetting they are on WP for a specific period) and then never want to leave. PR should come in two forms, marriage or Caymanian lineage. Not through employment!
blah blah….next…i think these guys getting worse than trump??
This rhetoric appeals to the simple and uneducated. Period. More of the same from well fed politicians stirring the anti-foreigner pot. Pathetic
Worked for Brexit and a Trump.
They are not anti foreigner, they are pro Caymanian. And for your information both Ezzard and Alva are educated. Especially Alva who has a bachelor’s degree as well as a master’s degree from prestigious universities. There is no one more educated than him in the LA and few up to his educational level. Going forward if any of you out there choose to vote for anyone in the PPM/Unity party you should have your heads examined to see if there are any brains between the ears. Also the most annoying thing to watch is politician reading their debate verbatim. Please also tell your people who write others debate to at least give the poor guy the document in time for him to go over it before he gets up to the mic. Pathic.
Mmmmmmm, Ezzard also has a Bachelors and Masters degrees.
Didn’t say he didn’t- just was not sure of all his qualifications. No problem, Thanks for the update.
Prestigious universities, plural, you say? Well he must have four degrees, because his web-bio only listed his degrees from DePaul and Syracuse. How modest to keep his other two degrees quiet.
This issue is pretty simple. As in Britian and the USA, the native born should be asking what kind of immigration benefits them the most. In Britian that resulted in Brexit in the USA, in an “America first” president. Caymanians need to adopt the same strategy. I have a few suggestions:
Firstly; Have an imparital entity do a study of the native born Cayman school and working age population to determine their cognitive and potential skills. Then limit new work permits in those areas where sufficient numbers of able native borns are available.
Secondly, Limit permits from countries with serious cultural and economic dysfunction. It may be “politically incorrect”, “racist” and … But it is common sense that a person who hales from a culture where violence, dishonesty, drug abuse, and the like, are rampant, is more likely to exhibit the same traits. Why chance that Cayman children, women, and other native borns be exposed to that. Immigration from places that published statistics show to be culturally disfunctional vis-a-vis Cayman cultural values should be limited. Caymanians have a perfect right to their traditional values and distinct culture.
Finally; Only candidates who can show a history of compatible (with Cayman) values should be considered for permits. Caymanians and others who are legally in Cayman should not be exposed to some “pig in a poke” person that slack Cayman authorities allowed in without proper vetting as to background and morals.
Ummm, I don’t think that ‘America First’ guy is doing too well. Just sayin
Mabe you should check the record stock market driven by record earnings and objective indicators like the lowest uemployment rate since 2000, lower unemployment claims, lower persons on food-stams and highest consumer confdence in 20 years amongst other things.
If you watch CNN or MSNBC you would not realise but I think the above shows he’s doing ‘great’.
if you didn’t just watch fox, you would know the stock market increased more under obama’s first 9 months in office than Trumps first nine months.
And Trump told everyone Obama was doing a rubbish job, so in Trump’s own words he is doing worse than rubbish
7.46 if you understood what you watched, you would know that Trump has actually achieved nothing worthwhile yet. Obama’s legacy continues. Thank him for America thriving.
Biochemistry,Banks(same industry that caused the finance crash ),Big Pharma (same industry that charges you $200 a pop for cancer treatment pills ) Netflix and UndeArmour were the notable winners under Obama . Ask yourself how much of a win this inflated growth really stands for? Commodities including manufacturing ,engineering all slipped and left the country under Obama . Further we saw crashes of stock (green energy) crash by over 70% and lose the country billions .
Obama could not balance the DNC budget -what makes you think he could handle the economy ?!
Btw this is all documented by NY Times, Forbes Politico and of course Fox.
#Trump
There is a backlash to the “globalist” world view and those entrenched in power resent this backlash. DNC, UN, EU and MSM just to name a few.
What precisely constitutes the notion that so called ‘native born’ Caymanians are anything but the victims of their own institutionalised greed, incompetence and low work ethic?
Unfortunately for you the prison is full of native born Caymanians as are the special schools and homes for dysfunctional kids, the welfare programmes for equally dysfunctional Caymanian families, baby mammas, drug addicts, alcoholics and the generally lazy.
Caymanians already have the advantage to succeed within current immigration and employment policies. It is for Caymanians to prove to a potential employer that they are presentable, educated, motivated and willing to get down to their tasks without going missing, sitting on their cell phones, constantly looking for food or whining that they are tired.
You need to understand that without those you so malign in your warped sense of values, you wouldn’t have the wealth this country currently enjoys. For decades the small ‘native’ Caymanian population of the 50’s and 60’s has been multiplied by inter racial, international and inter cultural integration. You are not the people you once claim to be when these islands were a dependency of Jamaica, populated by descendants of Jamaicans and of course Britain. Now you are made up of every possible permutation of demographic found in the Caribbean and more.
So get over your nonsensical vision of a Caymanian utopia, it doesn’t exist and your economy, at all levels, demands work permit labour to cover your own population and skills shortfall.
Limit permits from countries with serious cultural and economic dysfunction.
Dont know why this would be seen as racist.. After all, the US and Uk have been examples of these issues. In anycase, we can read what your’re getting at though.
Fire them all, just fire everyone. Expats, government, immigration. Open the borders to be so free and you will get the trash along with the treasured employees..
Enough already. This whole philosophy need to come to an end.
Cayman is just another country on this planet called earth where general rules of gravity, physics, nature and economics apply.
It costs more to hire expats than Caymanians. It is a pain to go through the work permit process. There are very basic laws of economics as to why employers go to this trouble.
Companies have one primary purpose: to generate profits. Full stop. Fighting this basic economic law is equivalent to fighting gravity.
If someone is turned down for a job, it means that that the employer found someone better. Someone else who will help the company generate profits. This is a hard reality to accept but the more humble you are and faster you accept it, the better.
If you fight against a company’s purpose to generate profits, it will create an equal and opposite reaction. If you try to force a less profitable hire, the company will react by hiring elsewhere or by making the position redundant.
Please think deeper on this issue. In business, in nature, in life, those who are disciplined, who are competitive, who strive to make themselves better are the ones who are rewarded with the fruits of their labor.
Does the farmer who hasn’t planted seeds, or tended his fields deserve a great harvest?
Should the fisherman who sleeps in, doesn’t build or maintain his boat or his nets expect to have stockpile of fish?
Those who work hard succeed. If an employer doesn’t hire you, don’t sit and stew and be ashamed. Instead, figure out why you weren’t hired and better yourself to ensure that doesn’t happen again. Better yet, start your own venture and beat the others at their own game. There is such great opportunity here. People in the financial and tourism worlds come here in droves. There is great opportunity for every Caymanian to take advantage of that.
Stop saying “it’s futile, it’s hopeless, we will never be able to compete” if you say that then you have lost and the natural rules of this world will work against you.
Keep fighting to better yourself. Don’t leave your broken boat and torn nets on the shore.
Stop the entitlement mindset. Start a new regime of inspiring and promoting excellence and teaching Caymanians to work and fight hard to earn what is truly deserved.
agreed … but! yes but! “If someone is turned down for a job, it means that that the employer found someone better. Someone else who will help the company generate profits.” Problem here, is that a job worth 9 dollars an hour for one person can be split into 3 dollars an hour for 3 Filipinos plus work permit fees. BUT 3 people for the price of 1! means more workers for less money. means more profits for less payouts. And since Caymanians will not work for your CHEESY $3 an hour. You all choose the people who can. With cost of living going up, we cant support our Cayman families with Cheesy pay. Filipinos. Jamaicans, Americans can .. because the CI dollar in your country is more! US Dollar = 80cents CI. A CI dollar in the US = $1.25. A $1 in the Philippines is about $62.00 for them. and $5 of their money can buy them a lot. So you do the math. NOT ALL CAYMANIANS are lazy. we just won’t work for you money greedy fools who want to undermined us and under pay us. As a Caymanian i took over a job from an expat who use to make $4200 (plus work permits). My company basically says im not worth it (but me and the expats has the same qualifications), so i get paid $2400 because im Caymanian. So do the math. Being Caymanian in Cayman is like being BLACK in America and Trump (DART) is president.
By law Caymanians are to be majority owners of all businesses in the Island I think it is Cayman business men that don’t hire Camaynians.
Fronting….. or do you deny it is prevalent?
It takes a REAL Caymanian to be the front man. Again Cayman kind treat Cayman Cayman kind?
You do the math, (maths). Why do Caymanian employers pay crap wages to anyone, from anywhere?
Simply because they are greedy and care not for those they claim to represent. The high cost of living on these islands is generated by the importation of almost everything and the outrageous pricing policies implemented by fat cat business owners intent on fleecing locals and visitors alike.
If you want affordability, protest against your own and force prices down to realistic levels where ordinary citizens can take any job and afford to live within their means. Simply pushing up wage demands to compete with pricing is doomed to failure as the higher the wages, the higher the pricing.
One way that fairness could be bought into the service industry, (a major WP employer) is to stop the reliance on gratuities to boost incomes and reduce employers liabilities. Bar and restaurant owners already way over charge for food and drink, the profits are already huge, force them to share those profits with those who generate their income instead of passing on that liability to the customer with a mandatory or expected additional charge.
Gratuities should be a recognition of good service by an individual or team, it should not be a device to reduce wages and pass on employment costs by self enriching local businesses.
So start at your own doorstep and lobby your government for fairer pricing controls, consumer rights and wage structuring, don’t blame those who will work for your own countrymen for slave wages, blame the profiteering slave master.
And that’s where the entitlement starts.
You state that took over from an Expat, which mean that expat was in the establishment for maybe a few years. You are basically saying that even if you are worth it or not, that the fact that you are Caymanian is that you should start and be paid what another employee took years to make on your first go at the position?
When you were being interviewed and confirm the position i’m almost sure the salary was agreed. Now you feel you can run the company and so vain as to say you have the same qualifications as the previous person.
You are not seeking to be employed my dear, you are seeking to ruin a company.
That is what the poster means about being humble. You are not humble. Sound even anger towards the company that you are expected to help make profits.
And by the way. You answered the other comments about paying Expats cheaply $3.00 an hour. Let’s put this in the coffin right now as you have demonstrated that it is in deed a lot more expensive to hire Expat.
Its cheaper to hire you as a Caymanian. But look what this employer is subject to already. I feel sorry for your employer and soon you will think that it’s better for you to stay home and do nothing than to make a measly $2400.00 to slave yourself all day.
What a serious contradiction you have just made. I hope the authorities and responsible person could read your post over and see the irony of an employer paying so much more for an Expat, while the MLAs are complaining that employers are under paying and making too much profits from cheap labor.
Once we can get Caymanians
(sound like you are one of the “married to” entitlement mindset types).
to have a better employment attitude and have some gratitude and just do as poster sated, get the job done and do a good day’s work for a paycheck, we could all start to have a good strong work force.
I have met persons in strip club type environment in other countries that are now tellers and other such positions., All because of that highest degree of qualification that is only achieved in cayman.
“Doctorate of Married to Caymanian” Certificate.
Caymanians are mostly humble. Those other kinds and just messed up in the head and feel they should destroy other business..
wow what a bunch of self serving rhetoric. Every countries’ politicians should be protecting the rights and quality of life of their citizens. Cayman used to do this until Alden the Weak….he is more worried about appeasing guests and other foreign interests.
What if the reason “you weren’t hired” was due to having too much melanin in your skin? How do you “better yourself” to not have the employer find “someone better” who doesn’t have the same condition?
Here’s the problem with that argument. How do you ever know that’s the reason? If you have evidence, take it to the labor dept or the press. If you don’t have evidence then you don’t “know”, so you?
Nobody ever wants to believe they were not the best candidate. It’s much easier to believe the employer didn’t pick you because they are prejudiced.
Yes, it is difficult to prove, but that doesn’t mean you should just presume it is the case.
By looking for work where they want to hire YOU.
gov has no money. need the permits to make them money. just like the car issue here. we import over 180 cars ever 2 weeks. but just where the hell are these cars going? and when will it stop? it cant! each used car can guarantee the gov $1200+ in waste fees. but what do these fees help? roads are still garbage to drive on … dump still an issue, but father that has that now. So like the expat? we need some i agree, but just how much do we need? when do we cap? where is the limit?
Inane zero-sum economics. Easy to explain to the xenophobic and ill-educated. Utter nonsense to everyone else.
Ezzard back to his hatred spewing self. Stay with the program, see if you can get it. Just for a minute, let’s suppose we don’t renew any work permits. Immediate reduction in income to CIG of circa $100m. Not to mention legal case costs ( lots of those I suspect). If you take financial services alone there are not enough qualified Caymanians who could fill the roles, and filling positions with unqualified Caymanians means business walks to a place that can provide the service needed (assuming the expats who have to leave have not taken it with them already). Loss to CIG in fees, say another $200m. So 22,000 people leave and no one is left to rent homes, or buy them come to that. People with mortgages on those properties cannot pay them, foreclosures rise. You don’t need as many shops or shop workers, or bars or restaurants, cleaners, gardeners, nannies, so unemployment rises on top of the lost FS jobs. In short, a shit show.
It’s a zero game. Do we need properly educated Caymanians with the attitude to get the job done instead of the current silver spoon fed mentality, yes we do! Plenty of small nations have succeeded by having great education. Work Permits are not the issue. If the money they generate was spent wisely in education, they could be part of the solution. Instead we ge5 blamed for everything and I don’t know about others but it’s wearing a little thin now.
I agreed with you upto ‘the money was wisely spent on education ‘ part. They wasted every penny, dime and dollar on that front for sure. And my kids went to JGHS, and it was the model of what not to do in education.
Good lord. This is some seriously twisted logic on the part of the opposition.
Imagine if a new company wanted to hire 100 accountants. Are there 100 unemployed Caymanian accountants? No.
They could hire 100 Caymanian accountants, if money was no object and they wanted to pay way over the market rate to poach them from their existing jobs.
Or they could hire the few Caymanians that applied and pay $15,000 for each permit holder to fill the rest of the spots (which, by the way, Caymanians can hold in the future). Government makes $1.5m per annum which it can spend on services for Caymanians.
Or, if the opposition got its way, government could refuse to issue work permits and the company can go somewhere else instead. Government gets nothing, Caymanians get nothing.
How is this preferable exactly?
“Government makes $1.5m per annum which it can spend on services for Caymanians.” Or it could use those funds to give concessions to already rich developers.
More twisted logic.
The government spends hundreds of millions on education, healthcare and welfare that ONLY benefits Caymanians. They spend hundreds more on services like police and infrastructure that benefit everyone, including Caymanians and all other residents.
They can spend all this money because they have a strong economy.
They have a strong economy because they’ve attracted investors who contribute far more to the economy than they receive in concessions.
Every dollar not spent on a Caymanian is not a dollar squandered. Sometimes you need to spend a dollar to make ten more.
This math is potentially incorrect. It is based on average permit cost, but many permits cost lots more. The reality is that IF companies apply for permits, it will for way less than 2,400, resulting in no job losses for Caymanians.
New headline.
“Poor work ethic results in higher demand for work permits”.
The Ritz Carlton still paying Usd 5.50. Give the young people an opportunity you no need 10 years experience that is why you have to get people abroad. Just to get money and you people are suffering why as a AML try to live with 5.50 usd per hour for a month.
Hey, start with 5.50 and move up fast. People do it all the time. Sometime 3 mo is enough to demonstrate your worthiness for a business.
But it gets in the way of a social life, and Facebok and important stuff.
The suggetsion that Caymanians are getting a fair chance at jobs is laughable, or would be if the repercussions were not so dire for our society.
How exactly does a government increase work permits? Work permits are applied for by employers the majority Caymanians.
Government does not advertise and sell work permits.
So I think this whole story is wrong.
Fronting?
persons who self identify as Caymanians hardly make any hiring decisions in Cayman, and sadly that includes the civil service!
I suggest you read the article this time instead of writing a comment that is clearly based on the title and the title alone.
Diogenes
You are absolutely correct. We seem to conveniently forget that work permits are 90% submitted by Caymanian employers. I would
Love to know how many of our Government officials have companies or interests in companies and just what ratio is there workforce for those companies… better be 100% Caymanian for all that chat and they better have Caymanian domestic helpers And not a work permit holder.
We must also remember that what truly threatens our jobs are those who are being granted Permanent Residency. A work permit position should be advertised therefore allowing Caymanians the opportunity to apply which could result in a work permit refusal or a succession condition… that’s not the case with those who obtain Permanent Residency.
Why are they refusing to let the public see the Ritch Report on PR… just like how Trump is refusing to release his tax returns only thing is we are much worse because it’s a report paid for by the people yet we are kept in the dark.
Or married to an expat as most are.
Try reading the article again. And remember it’s always better to remain quiet and be thought of as an idiot than to speak up and prove it.
wow you got a book of quotations…you are so smart and we are so lucky to have you