By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
PRIME Minister Perry Christie confirmed to parliamentarians yesterday that during his administration’s two years in office, labour market conditions improved slightly with 2,600 jobs added to the Bahamian workforce.
During his 2014/2015 Budget Communication, Mr Christie explained that employment figures, which covered six months of the year 2013 up to November, resulted in a lowered jobless rate. That rate, he said, fell to 15.4 per cent from 16.2 per cent overall.
The job creation numbers, however, disagree with a figure printed on the inside cover page of a magazine created and funded by Bahamas Information Services (BIS) to mark the government’s two years in office.
The 60-page document was distributed last week with a caption which read: “Almost 7,000 new jobs created as Christie government marks 2nd anniversary in office.”
But if labour force statistics since 2011 are considered, nearly 7,000 jobs were added.
At that time, the employed labour force consisted of 160,185.
Later in 2012, Department of Statistics officials concluded an increase of 165,255 and then in 2013 166,595 persons were employed.
The overall number of new jobs during that three-year period came to 6,410 new jobs.
Mr Christie said: “Labour market conditions improved slightly over the six months to November 2013, reflecting the mild pace of the recovery in the domestic economy.
“According to the Department of Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, the jobless rate narrowed to 15.4 per cent from 16.2 per cent in May, as the number of employed persons rose by 2,600 to 166,595.
“In terms of the main labour markets, the unemployment rate in both New Providence and Grand Bahama fell by 0.3 and 2.7 percentage points to 15.6 and 16.8, respectively.
“In addition, the number of discouraged workers contracted by 1,205 persons, as both Grand Bahama and New Providence experienced declines of 18.5 per cent and 13.5 per cent respectively.”
Additional labour force statistic state that there remains 30,285 unemployed in the Bahamas.
Comments
B_I_D___ 10 years, 5 months ago
10,000...y'all get swung!!
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 5 months ago
How does this correlate with the nicely packaged and professional looking booklet from BIS? Well...I guess 2,600 is "almost" 7,000, not quite 7,000 but "almost"
B_I_D___ 10 years, 5 months ago
Close enough for government work...almost like original bidding processes...yeah man, we will build that for you for 2.6 Million...oh wait, after cost overruns, it was closer to 7 Million...we're cool with that...it's a government thing.
carlh57 10 years, 5 months ago
liars! all of them...
jlcandu 10 years, 5 months ago
Obviously the PM can neither do simple math nor lie well. Please look at the numbers people!!!
Total employed labour force increased by 1,340; total unemployed labour force increased by 3,335. Therefore total net unemployed is 1,995. Therefore unemployment increased by 1,995 people!!!
Idiots and liars, all of them!!! And they tried to befuddle and confuse by providing a lot of data.
Wake up Bahamians!!!
Emac 10 years, 5 months ago
Oh but Bahamians refuse to awake from their dreary sleep until one day they find out that they don't have enough money to buy numbers.
asiseeit 10 years, 5 months ago
Pathetic but what do you expect from the kleptocrats that run this country. they are more interested in themselves than the Bahamian people.
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
Please publish the Misery Index for The Bahamas ..................... all other statistics are politically skewed .................... LOL
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