Cayman’s cost-of-living crisis is forcing businesses to consider moving key positions out of Cayman, Chamber of Commerce president Nelson Dilbert claimed Wednesday.
Speaking at the organisation’s Parliamentary Luncheon at the Kimpton Seafire resort, Dilbert said challenging economic times were putting a strain on businesses.
He acknowledged that multiple sectors were doing well and that thousands of new jobs had been added to the economy since COVID.
But he warned coveted middle-income positions in certain industries could go overseas as the impact of rising costs starts to bite. High inflation, followed by rapid interest rate hikes, has led to soaring household bills with monthly mortgage payments, rents, utility bills, home insurance and food prices all going up.
Dilbert said the cost impact had been felt by businesses too.
He said, “It would be irresponsible for me to ignore the worrying trends that are being shared during our council meetings.
“Costs have increased in virtually every aspect of business operations – health, property insurance, bank fees, interest rate hikes, fuel prices, labour costs, housing rentals, consumer goods and services, building materials – you name it, the prices have gone up since last year.”
He said the net impact was that many companies were outsourcing positions to lower cost jurisdictions. It is understood that this phenomenon is impacting higher paying white-collar jobs as opposed to service industry jobs that require staff to be on island.
“This certainly is a worrying trend and we should monitor this closely,” said Dilbert.
“Once a company decides to outsource these positions, it is unlikely they will return to the island. That is sad news for Caymanians who are seeking middle income jobs to start buying homes and raising their families.”
Premier Wayne Panton also addressed the cost-of-living crisis during his speech, saying Cayman and the world was in “uncharted territory”.
He said government was helping as much as it could and would continue to do so while maintaining balanced budgets.
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It is not good enough to say we will monitor this trend of middle class jobs leaving the island.
we need action on cost of living else Cayman will develop a much more stark caste system with the wealthy on one side and the poor taking what scraps they can. Caymanians also tend to fill alot of the middle class job at this point so the disappearing of those jobs will affect the entire local community.