Business Staffing Board Chairwoman Sherri Bodden-Cowan said Wednesday she did not understand the recent controversy concerning exempting some key job positions from the seven-year fixed term.
‘This is not a new policy,’ she said. ‘It was always intended to be a part of the new Immigration Law.’
Mrs. Bodden-Cowan made the remarks as the featured speaker at the Chamber of Commerce Luncheon at the Wharf Restaurant.
The Immigration Law (2003) went into effect the beginning of last year.
One of the Law’s provisions called for seven-year term limits for work permit holders.
The aw also allowed for certain employees or job positions to be exempted from the fixed-term policy for two more years, allowing the employee or position holder to become eligible to apply for permanent residency.
‘For the employee concerned, being exempted from the fixed term policy does not guarantee promotion, residency, or certainly not Caymanian Status,’ said Mrs. Bodden-Cowan. ‘What it does do is to confirm that that employee, provided he remains in that position, may remain in the island for up to nine years.’
Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said the Business Staffing Board moved to implement the new Immigration regulations issued by Cabinet in May, 2004, after returning from its recess last January.
‘We met with many representatives from the financial community as well as other industries and found that, across the board, the immediate threat to all industries was a lack of top personnel,’ she said.
Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said some employees were reluctant to return after the hurricane, others found the going too tough and left, and that new employees were hesitant to take up positions in post-Ivan Cayman.
The Business Staffing Board considered implementing the regulations a necessary first step in encouraging the settlement of highly qualified person.
Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said 45 of Cayman’s mostly larger companies have Business Staffing Plans.
She said her Board carefully and decisively identified exempted positions in banks, trust companies, law firms, accounting firms as well as other industries.
‘I can, however, reassure you that the Board takes its job extremely seriously and very few positions with the work permit force have been identified as exempted,’ she said, later adding that ‘not even 200 have actually been exempted.’
Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said the Board’s foremost priority was to protect jobs for Caymanians.
‘Unfortunately, some would-be politicians and other disgruntled persons have sought to falsely portray this move on the part of the Board as a relaxing of the fixed-term policy that will lead to the deprivation of jobs for Caymanians,’ she said.
‘They are saying anything and everything to raise the concern of the Caymanian people that this is going to result in a loss of jobs.’
Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said the loss of jobs by Caymanians in banking and other industries has been due to regionalisation, computerisation and relocation.
‘Be assured that this trend is bound to continue with more Caymanian jobs being lost if businesses are unable to get the work permits they need to staff their offices,’ she said. ‘They do have the option of doing business elsewhere, and some are already taking advantage of it.’
Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said that expatriates make up about half of the labour force with some 14,000 work permit holders.
‘We would be foolish to think we could continue to operate the financial community as well as our other industries with only half of our current work force,’ she said. ‘Like it or not, we need the expatriate workers until our own population has grown large enough to service the needs of our economy.’
Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said Cayman needs to achieve a balance with expatriate workers.
On one hand she said the country had to attract ‘the very brightest and best of the world for positions that cannot be filled by Caymanians.’
‘But, we must also ensure that those positions that can be filled by Caymanians, or for which Caymanians can be trained, are offered to those Caymanians, and that their upward mobility is ensured,’ she said.
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