Topic: unemployment rate

Cayman's population jumped 5% in a year's time to almost 88,000 in 2024, the latest government figures have revealed.

The opposition Progressives party has called on government to take stronger action to tackle growing unemployment in Cayman, describing a return to pre-pandemic numbers of Caymanians out of work as "disappointing".

The unemployment rate among Caymanians has risen to 5%, with 1,143 locals out of work, according to the most recent data released by the government's Economic and Statistics Office.

While the majority of businesses are providing Caymanians with job opportunities, Minister for Labour Chris Saunders says there still are companies which do not and that “remains a challenge”.

The Economics and Statistics Office has estimated an unemployment rate of just 3% in the first half of this year as the Cayman Islands reopened for tourism.

The number of unemployed Caymanians increased by 558 to 1,759, resulting in an unemployment rate of 8.3% in the second half of last year.

Estimates from the Fall 2018 Labour Force Survey show that the unemployment rate has fallen to 2.8%, the lowest rate since the second half of 2006, when it stood at 2.6%. Caymanian unemployment has fallen to 4.6%, which is also the lowest it has been since 2006 when it bottomed out at 3.6%.

Unemployment in the Cayman Islands has dropped to levels last seen before the financial crisis.

A decade’s worth of data from the Immigration Department and the government statistics office examined by the Cayman Compass shows a clear link between the number of foreign workers on the islands and the unemployment rate.

Cayman’s overall unemployment rate fell from 5.6 percent in spring 2015 to 4.2 percent in fall 2015, the government Office of Economics and Statistics reported Tuesday.