Only 27% of construction workers are Caymanian
(CNS): The idea that construction is critically important for local jobs was dispelled by Ministry of Labour Chief Officer Wesley Howell on Thursday when he told the Public Accounts Committee that only around 27% of people working in the sector are Caymanian. Howell was answering questions about a report by the Office of the Auditor General, published earlier this year, that raised concerns about government expenditure on helping Caymanians into work.
He said that WORC is improving its data collection and explained how that data is being used to help shape a National Employment Policy, as recommended by the OAG. One of the many issues that the audit revealed was the mismatch between the jobs that are increasing in the labour market and the type of work that Caymanians are doing or want to do.
The chief officer said the research and data collected show that Caymanians are not engaged in areas that are generating new jobs and opportunities. Construction is one of the biggest growth areas for jobs, but almost three-quarters of those jobs now go to non-Caymanians. He said that new buildings, renovation and redevelopment are creating new opportunities, but there are significant skills gaps.
“We’ve heard… that some of the skill sets are extremely difficult to get,” he said, such as carpenters and certain types of civil engineers. “There is absolute room for extra incentives at the scholarship and internship level to direct students down that path into areas where there is growth and demand for employment.”
This undermines the position taken by successive governments to justify the continued over-development across the Cayman Islands: that it provides jobs for local people. As frequently noted in recent years, this is no longer the case.
The OAG report found a number of problems related to the CI$144 million the government spent in the last five years trying to help Caymanians enter the workforce and improve their career prospects. The audit found little evidence that any of the initiatives, programmes and attempts to remove barriers had helped.
In Improving Employment Prospects for Caymanians, Auditor General Sue Winspear made ten recommendations, including developing a National Employment Policy and helping job seekers gain the qualifications to meet the demands of the current job market.
In addition to the skills mismatch, there are a number of other barriers that are keeping local people unemployed at a time when there are tens of thousands of overseas workers employed here.
These include the lack of affordable childcare, the government’s failure to increase the minimum wage at all, let alone in line with inflation, discrimination against Caymanians in favour of cheap overseas labour, problems of substance abuse, mental health problems, learning difficulties and poor attainment.
At the end of last year, more than 1,100 unemployed local people said they were actively seeking work even though the workforce had reached record levels and there were well over 37,000 people on work permits.
Howell said that since the report was published, much work has gone into better understanding the Caymanian workforce and the barriers to finding work and improving career prospects. He said work is underway on the policy, which would be ready to present to the next administration later in 2025.
See the PAC proceedings on CIGTV below:
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Category: Government oversight, Jobs, Local News, Policy, Politics
And there will be lots more coming, the floodgates have opened, looking at 100,000 – think it will stop there with just these illegal already. These idiots in governnent and their supporters have never lived in the real world, some never left their own road until they became ‘MP’s and feeding themselves thinking they are important, complacent, we made it. They have no idea what is going to hit Cayman, harder you fall!
Some ideas/considerations:
– how much CI$ goes to people to go overseas as scholarships? How much of that is to attend trade schools vs more expensive Universities? You don’t need a four year degree to work in A/C, construction mgmt, some allied health fields. All highly transferable/transportable skills.
– what is the penalty or tax for hiring non Caymanians in general work positions? Is it punitive enough to allow the Caymanian a fair shot? What is the tax on CI$ earned by non-Caymanians sent back to their families.
Some call these protectionist moves and I don’t disagree completely but some iteration of actions like these will help ease the flow to a more intentional and controlled pace while giving Caymanians a shot.
Cayman is small and policies must put Caymanians first and can be done without stifling the continued over development if that is what Caymanians want.
Love my birthplace, cherish my birthright.
And look at the poor workmanship done by some of these ‘construction’ workers. Stand around gas stations early morning, someone with own small ‘company’ picks them up and cannot do a damn thing, not even paint a wall properly…your place is worse than it was before they stepped into it and costs you more to put it right!
Trade schools and diploma colleges are for those that can’t get into university or finish high school. It’s not either or.
Now publish the salaries for these jobs and you will see why nobody wants to work in construction. Greedy developers and contractors benefiting from cheap labour!!!
Whoever is surprised by the numbers has been living at the bottom of the Cayman Trench for the last 20 years. This is blatantly obvious every time you enter a supermarket or bank. The only people benefiting from all this construction is….zzzzzzz
LTD Da Unboozler.
Dart benefits when they hammer down the prices. New batch of workers coming in from Cuba.
And that 27% are so called paper Caymanians
Ok, now let’s see the same numbers for cruise/stayover tourism.
Its easier to be paid handouts and stay home than actually go out and work is the problem…
Sadly it is no longer Caymanians who benefit from NAU, it is the children and grandchildren of status granted Jamaicans getting the payouts.
Thanks Mac, and hope Saunders, Seymour and Kenny will also thank him for generating so many voters for them.
Status Grants are Caymanians, like it or not.
This is a shocking discovery, I’m gonna have to pray about this
Good for you. While you’re at it, pray for more brain cells to make constructive comments instead of trying to drag religion into the subject.
Thank you for praying. This will help greatly. I wonder what Jesus would have done with this immigrant situation? Let us not forget his father was a carpenter and his lovely wife was Mary and she was a virgin that gave birth to baby Jesus in a stable on Christmas Day.
Correctio, 27% of those working legally in construction are Caymanian.
Instead of ummming and ahhhhing about the obvious issue of skills gap why not establish an accredited trades school. Why is has this been suggested so many times but totally ignored by past and present administrations?
Instead our politicians squander money on an unnecessary school in the Brac, a silly park in Kennyville, turn the heart of George Town into a forever construction zone, and whine again of needing an already voted down cruise ship dock.
A blind man can see what’s been going on construction industry for at least 2 decades, importing cheap Jamaican and Filipino labour while doing absolutely nothing to incentivise and up-skill Caymanians.
These clowns keep telling us they’re working on the betterment of Cayman for but for who exactly, Jamaica and other cheap labour source states?
We wouldn’t need to squander $150,000,000. or more on a new prison, if some of that wasted money could be spent on trade schools to teach Caymanians skills and keep them out of prison.
There’s some pretty slick salesman out there blowing money on ‘consultants’, and nobody seems to care.
I have been meaning to ask when will the following public facilities be fixed: Gun Bay dock and Lobster Pot dock. Seems North side getting all they need, but the rest of the public docks around the island not being repaired.
Yep, I can hear it now from the Cabinet Ministers: Lets give some more developer finance concessions in order to create more jobs for Caymanians.
This takes money directly away from Govt revenue and still does not help Caymanians get jobs because the expat labour is cheaper.
But what it does is the following: those persons making the decision to grant the financial / duty concession (that is no money to CIG) then charge the developer less than what the duty concession was, and the developer pays the decision makers behind closed doors, but the CIG and the public dont benefit from those payments.
The public dont get the money, the Caymanians dont get a job, but the decision makers driving new cars and living in big homes, living good life while we still struggling.
Now you are picking on the new project on Pageant Beach which the imported French contractor is really reaping the benefits of all the buy a work permit labor and duty concessions. Honorable Seymour and the rest of you high dollar representatives, where are you? Why aren’t you out there looking out for your Caymanian people? Is it to hot for you? Do you fools ever think that all these foreign companies are just laughing at how stupid you are as the peoples representative? You all are very revolting.
At $6/hr it’s hard to get anyone, let alone those with any pertinent skills, or experience. Retaining those with real talent is also mission impossible at that hourly rate, without holding and exercising some kind of permit leverage over the worker. There are no Caymanians in that world. Raise the minimum wage to $12/hour and half our work permits go home. Many of the new developer plans would get mothballed, which would suit many Caymanians just fine. It would reduce pressure on our infrastructure including: dump, port, roads, and housing. Drugs, numbers, and crime would also plummet.
Not true. As a small construction company owner I can tell you my lowest paid low skilled worker gets paid $18 per hour.
Problem with construction jobs is you need to be tough, show up regardless and endure less than ideal conditions.
Stay in school kids!!!
Learn everything you can kids, yes plumbing, electrical, mechanical, carpentry….make yourself a millionaire in construction in your own company as some of my family did whi never went to school, not in Cayman but the construction owners in Cayman are not suffering. School is good but not for everyone, be smart, learn and experience.
I know some construction workers are earning between $10 to $25 per hour. It is tough and hard work. you must able work outside all day long.
I want one of those $25.00 hour jobs, please post your contact information.
I own a construction company, and nobody gets paid $6hr. Rates vary from $12-$20hr depending on trade/experience. This is also the standard for a majority of companies. A select few give the rest a bad name. Worker reliability is the main reasoning behind Caymanians not being in the construction industry, not money and the quicker people look in the mirror and stop sugar coating that fact the better. Also, Wesley Howell needs to understand that Caymanian businesses that are majority Caymanian support the construction industry so what he is saying is nonsense. ALTs/Cox, the concrete companies, MEP companies, planning department hire hundreds of Caymanians between them who would all be unemployed if not for construction.
Government track record tells you all you need to know, they do not want Caymanians in the construction industry. that’s the only conclusion I can come to as to why there is yet to be a robust trade school. I’m a Caymanian in the industry and every business owner I know is ready to hire qualified Caymanians in every field especially in AC, electrical and plumbing.
The pay is shit that’s why.
The pay is not shit. Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing easily starting around $60k per year and at or above six figures with overtime very quick.
Finish carpenters, same. Masons, maybe not quite as high but still pretty good. Drywall and painters, also not bad.
The only pay that’s “shit” would be the laborers on site who are there just to lift heavy stuff. Anything with a proper skill will get you proper money. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or ill informed.
27% seems surprisingly high considering the number of permits issued at the moment.
Mostly “new Caymanians”.
Maybe if they were to crack down on all the “buy a work permit” people out here running around contracting and cutting prices, then Caymanian’s would look at these jobs. The developers do not want this to happen because with these work permit people they can treat them however they want including not following the labor laws. Why isn’t the Minister for Labor Seymour answering any of these questions?
Defiantly need to rid the industry of the permit holders working out of the trunk of their little cars taking on contracts they have no right to be taking on
Does that mean all the mamoram people?
Because he is laying low after that terrible accident.
I thought the last labor study showed roughly 50% (give or take) were Caymanian?
But also there’s a very misleading piece of this article which is that it doesn’t explain how it’s supposed to work when an industry is growing at a rate faster than the job training for Caymanians. Wes specifically mentioned civil engineers. That’s a four year degree just to start. So if we’ve been booming for some number of years of course civil engineers are going to lag behind.
Also let’s remember there are more construction workers than any other industry in the country, over 7000. That’s about 1900 Caymanians. I’d be willing to be that’s more than in tourism. I’m sure it’s more than in financial services. And I’m also sure they’re making more money than plenty of local retail outfits and other things.
This is only really exploring one side of a two-sided (at least) coin.