Work permit numbers stabilising

After more than two years of sharp decline, data from the Cayman Islands Immigration Department appears to show that work permit numbers are levelling off – at least during the past 12 months.

On 31 December, 2010, records show there were 20,564 work permit holders, government contract employees and foreigners working as an operation of the law in the Cayman Islands. A year later, 31 December, 2011, that same number was 19,816 – a difference of slightly more than three per cent.

According to immigration statistics, a low point for work permits was reached around late March, when the overall numbers dropped to 18,828. Since then, overall permit numbers have hovered between 19,000 and 20,000 people at any given time. Work permit numbers can change weekly or even daily in Cayman and any figures provided on a date serve as a ‘snapshot’ of what exists at that time.

However, information from the Immigration Department during a number of years has consistently evidenced a major drop in permit numbers since late 2008, when more than 26,000 work permit holders were employed within the Cayman Islands. Local laws require any foreign workers who are not married to Caymanians or who do not have permanent residence to obtain a work permit or government contract before taking up a job here.

In early 2011, work permit numbers fell below 20,000 for the first time since Hurricane Ivan struck the Islands in 2004. As of 31 December, 2011 they had not made it back above that mark.

There was not a great deal of change in the countries making up the majority of work permit holders during 2011. Jamaica, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada rounded out the top five. Those five countries as well as India and Honduras accounted for more than 80 per cent of the foreign employees living here on permits in the Cayman Islands as of 31 December.

The major permit categories kept track of by the Immigration Department appeared to show that longer-term foreign workers were still leaving Cayman’s shores; the number of work permit renewals active on 31 December had fallen by about 300 permits from just three months before. Work permit renewals went from 8,222 in early October to 7,924 at the end of the year.

However, that drop was more than made up for by an increase in new grants of work permits and temporary [six month] work permits during the same period. According to immigration records, first-time grants of full year work permits increased by about 300 permits between October and December, while temporary work permit numbers increased by more than 350. Temporary work permits are often used by companies as introductory permits prior to hiring a foreign employee on a full year permit.

The government also continued to make progress in whittling down the number of people working in Cayman ‘as an operation of the law’ – essentially those awaiting decisions on permanent residence grants or work permit appeals. As of 31 December, there were still more than 1,000 people in that category. However, that number dropped from 1,182 just three months ago.

At the beginning of 2009, there were more than 3,000 people working here while awaiting decisions on permanent residence grants and work permit appeals.

The number of foreign workers in Cayman on government contracts also appeared to stabilise and even slightly increased during 2011. At the end of the year, 973 people were working on government contracts, up from 911 earlier in the year. In late 2008, more than 1,500 people held Cayman government contracts.

Typically, government contracts are awarded only to expatriate workers. However, there are some Caymanian civil servants older than 60 who are required to obtain contracts to continue working beyond the normal retirement age.