The labour ministry is drawing up a policy to address unemployment among Caymanians, which it says should be ready for a new government to review following next year’s general election.
Wesley Howell, chief officer in the Ministry of Border Control, Labour and Culture, told legislators on Friday that a plan would likely be ready by the fourth quarter of 2025. The timing for that draft policy was deliberate, he said, to take into account a potential change of government, as the current administration was nearing the end of its four-year term.
Howell was speaking at a Public Accounts Committee meeting, at which lawmakers examined a May 2024 report by the Office of the Auditor General on improving employment prospects for Caymanians.
The report had noted that while the government has individual programmes and approaches to deal with local unemployment, there is no overarching strategy. Among a list of 10 recommendations made in the report, the auditor general called for a national employment policy, based on “robust data and assumptions” and which aligns with international best practices, to be established.
The audit report noted that, since 2018, successive governments have committed to improving employment opportunities for Caymanians, but have not outlined exactly what needs they intend to address nor how they plan to achieve that goal.
The strategy Howell mentioned would seek to address bridging the gaps between what employers in Cayman are looking for and the abilities, training, expertise and suitability of local jobseekers.
These gaps were highlighted in a labour market assessment report, which was released last year. It showed a mismatch between the skill set, qualifications and interest of jobseekers in Cayman with future job opportunities.
The report, funded by a European Union grant, used data from Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman (WORC), the Economics and Statistics Office, the University College of the Cayman Islands, the Chamber of Commerce, and other entities.
“That report, along with the Office of the Auditor General’s report, is great in relation to baselining where we are and what things look like, and some of the barriers and challenges we have,” Howell said.
He added that the report highlighted what sectors and industries were growing and what types of skills and qualifications the future Caymanian workforce should be acquiring.
Only quarter of construction workers are Caymanian
Citing 2022 data from the Economics and Statistics Office, Howell said the sectors that have the highest number of Caymanians are typically not the growth industries.
For example, he said 82% of the workforce field of electricity, gas, air-conditioning, water and sewerage, is Caymanian, but only 424 people work in that sector. By contrast, he said of the 8,827 jobs in the ever-expanding construction sector, only 27% were filled by Caymanians. And the growing science and technology industry, where there are 5,200 jobs, about 40% of those workers are Caymanian.
“There is absolutely room for extra incentivisation at scholarship or internship level to direct students down those paths and into areas where there is growth and demand for employment,” Howell said.
The Caymanian unemployment rate, as of late last year, was 5%, equating to 1,143 people out of work.
The Office of the Auditor General’s report noted that “full employment” is defined by the International Labour Organization as unemployment of between 3% and 6% of the labour force, meaning Cayman technically has full employment.
Howell noted that, for many years, when the unemployment rate is tallied – apart from during the COVID pandemic – there are usually roughly 1,000 Caymanians counted as being out of work. However, he said, this number is understated, as the definition of “unemployed” is those who are actively seeking and able to work.
“We have a pool of people who may choose to work, but not actively seeking work, so are not counted in that number,” he said, such as those with addictions and other social issues.
He added that, for some Caymanians, some sectors have a “certain stigma” associated with them, giving an example of a 16-year-old intern who had related a story of hiding in a freezer when his friends entered the fast food restaurant where he’d taken a summer job rather than let them see him working there.
Howell noted that, in the US, high school and college students frequently work in the fast food industry in part-time positions.
Auditors found that while the majority of those who took part in government-sponsored apprenticeship programmes completed them, only 10% of those of those who applied were accepted due to a lack of places.
Director of WORC, Jeremy Scott, said this issue would be addressed as part of a strategy being drawn by his department, which would be seeking additional government funding to expand the number of places available.
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