The Cayman Islands government service has shed more than 200 employees overall during the past three years, according to the Economics and Statistics Office.
Records released by the office last week indicated just more than 3,750 people were in central government employment in the first quarter of 2009.
By third quarter 2011, the most recent figures which were available, that number dropped to 3,565. The numbers only include the central government service and not individuals employed by statutory authorities and government-owned companies.
According to the statistics office, the decline has been gradual, and the fall-off in government employees has slowed somewhat of late: “As compared to a year ago, civil service employment decreased by 1.7 per cent (or 61 persons).”
The decrease in civil service jobs also does not mirror the drop in government contracts given to non-Caymanians and Caymanians over age 60 during the same period.
Figures released by the Immigration Department earlier this month indicated the number of government contracts had slipped from nearly 1,500 to just below 1,000 between late 2008 and late 2011 – a decline of nearly one-third or roughly 500 jobs.
According to immigration figures, the rate of decline of foreigners working for government fell more steeply than foreign workers in the private sector, although the number of work permits also fell significantly.
Between 2008 and 2011, the number of work permits dropped from 19,257 to 15,753, a decline of 3,504 or 18.2 per cent. Those figures do not include individuals on government contracts or those working as an operation of the law, awaiting decisions on permanent residence applications or work permit appeals.
The number of foreigners on work permits increased slightly during 2011 – 524 permits or 3.4 per cent – while the number of non-Caymanian government workers continued to drop between 2010 and 2011.
The decreases in both sectors do not necessarily mean that those workers left the Cayman Islands. In the case of government workers, they could have received a grant of Caymanian Status. In the case of foreign work permit holders, a person being granted Caymanian Status or permanent residence would take them off the list of work permit holders. In addition, foreigners who had reached their term limits but had earned the right to apply for permanent residence are able to work by operation of law – rather than a work permit – until their application is determined.
Overall, the number of foreign workers in the Cayman Islands, not including permanent residents with the right to work, has decreased just slightly within the past year.
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 3 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.
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