There is a misconception that somehow Caymanians are being left behind through someone’s fault other than his or her own and that the rollover policy will fix it. It will not.
However, every society has a segment of its population that cannot hold jobs. Don’t take this personally. All societies have a variety of citizens – hard workers, lazy workers, highly paid and poorly paid. It is just that Cayman is growing faster than its population can support, and once all of the employable, good workers have been hired, employers must hire from abroad. Forcing an expat to leave a job at which he is skilled will not open a job for a Caymanian who is unemployable.
Employable Caymanians have no trouble finding work but there are not enough Caymanians to go around. What are employers to do? It is much easier to hire a Caymanian than to go abroad, wait three months for them to arrange their lives to move here, and go through the bother of work permits. All employers on this island would prefer to hire Caymanians and do so every time a qualified one knocks on their door.
This county is loaded with a high percentage of extremely successful Caymanians! Look at the Fosters, the Kirkconnells, the Thompsons, the Boddens. Look at that huge home on South Church Street.
No one in their right mind can think that the expats have it all in this country and that Caymanians do not get their fair share. Quite the contrary. Most of the poorest paid workers are expats not Caymanians – including those in housekeeping, gardening, food service, construction and the watersports industries. Why don’t Caymanians take and keep those jobs?
When you see a lot of well-to-do expats, remember that Government purposely makes laws to attract these wealthy retirees who own many of the luxurious homes that we all envy. These people do not compete with us for work – they simply spend and donate a lot of money locally. Those who gripe that Caymanians have been left behind in their own country need to look at the facts.
Don’t envy – learn from and be inspired by those who have succeeded. Don’t try some easy gimmick like the rollover/expulsion policy and think it will be a quick fix for hard work. Lean into the shovel, work late at the restaurant, get the skills for a new job. Take your classes seriously instead of talking on the cell phone. Take your books home and study, take correspondence courses, learn and be ready to work and you will be able to do anything you want.
The law says that Caymanians get priority at any job! It is laid in the lap of any Caymanian who become qualified for the job. How do you think all those other people do it?
Anyone in the Cayman Islands who does not have the type of job they desire does not understand what it takes – it takes work, study and more work. I, for example, spent six years in college and worked many years to develop my skills. I was good at what I did and then it all changed. When digital photography started to replace film photography I was forced to go back to school. I studied from the web, from magazines, from fellow workers and from classes in the US. I did not look forward to starting over and I do not enjoy computers, but I have to keep up to keep a paycheck coming. It is a lot of work and it does not come easy to me.
I have tried to employ several Caymanians over the years, but none pursued the opportunity. About four years ago the labour department sent me a young man who was a certified SCUBA diver and interested in underwater photography. I said I would hire him and asked him to do three simple things: Come to Stingray City with me so I could show him the use of a camera there; bring me a copy of his school record so that I could best understand what his strengths and weaknesses were; and bring me one letter of reference from his last job so that I could understand his work ethic better.
Remember here – I told him he had the job and I would train him! Two weeks passed and he still could not manage to find ‘time’ to come to Stingray City. Nor could he get me his records or a letter. This lad was unemployable. He admitted on the phone that he did not like working! This is not because he is Caymanian, it is because all societies have a segment of unemployable people.
The forced expulsion of good expat workers will not help young Caymanians; it will only hurt the country. Only a better education will fix this.
With our fast expanding economy, there will be plenty of new positions by the time today’s youngsters are graduating.
I desperately need long-time employees. It takes many, many years to learn to be a good underwater photographer and a great teacher. I am 61 and want someone capable of continuing my business so I can take some time off.
After six months of searching and waiting, I was able to bring in two highly qualified, long-term employees from Europe. Each were master scuba diving instructors, free-lance photographers, expert at photo shop. However, after being here only three months and reading that they would have to leave in seven years, they hurried back to Europe before their other business as free-lance photographers dried up there. I was devastated.
I am doomed to retrain over and over some new person every year and will never be able to retire. No one in Cayman wants my job. I have tried and tried and tried for 15 years. Expats either want a short one or two-year job, or a permanent position with home, friends and community. I need long-term employees desperately and now Cayman has forbidden this!
Cathy Church
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