The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas’ official unemployment rate declined by 70 basis points over a six-month period to hit 14 per cent in November 2012.

The Department of Statistics said this resulted from a 1,925 in the number of employed persons in its Labour Force and Household Income Survey, and a decrease of 1,175 in those unemployed.

New Providence’s unemployment rate fell from 14 per cent in May 2012 to 13.1 per cent in November, but that for Grand Bahama rose from 17.3 per cent to 18 per cent over the same period.

The Department said in a statement: “Unemployment among youths (15-24 years) on both islands continued to be considerably higher than any other age group. The overall rate was 30.7 per cent, a slight increase over the May figure.

“Of the nine industrial sectors, three experienced a decline in employment, with the decline being greatest in the ‘construction’ sector (20 per cent) over the six months period.

“The ‘community, social and personal service” industry, which includes the civil service, police and domestic service, continued to be the country’s largest industrial sector, accounting for 30 per cent of the workforce.”

The Department said workers employed in the ‘manufacturing’ sector experienced the largest increase in employment (22 per cent) over the period.

It added: “The discouraged workers in the country declined 8 per cent over the period. When examined by sex, the decline was greatest among women, 16 per cent, and was considerably lower for men, whose number decreased by 1 per cent.

“New Providence experienced a decline of 11 per cent in the number of discouraged workers, while the reverse was the case in Grand Bahama, where the numbers increased by 15 per cent.”

The Survey found there was minimum growth in the labour force (less than 1 per cent) since the last survey conducted in May of 2012. The labour force now totals 192,205 persons.

The Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority (URCA) will today announce whether it has approved Cable Bahamas’ application for an $8 per month increase in the price of its SuperBasic cable TV product.

Sources suggested the regulator was likely to approve the increase.

Increases of 80.8 per cent, and 114.8 per cent, respectively in loan loss impairments impacted the 2012 performance for Royal Bank of the Bahamas and its FINCO subsidiary.

Royal Bank’s consumer/commercial lending operation saw loan loss impairments increase from $8.631 million to $15.603 million for the year to end-October 2012. Its profitability, though, was flat year-over-year at $31.613 million.

FINCO, its BISX-listed mortgage lending subsidiary, saw its loan loss impairments rise from $9.125 million to $19.598 million year-over-year.

As a result, profits fell from $18.766 million to $10.982 million.