The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Prime Minister yesterday blamed the former Minnis administration’s COVID lockdowns and other restrictions for the shrinkage in the workforce and number of employed Bahamians amid a bitter House of Assembly row.

Philip Davis KC, in concluding the 2023-2024 Budget debate, argued that “this litany of rules” imposed during the pandemic had driven many Bahamians - especially doctors and nurses - to seek employment and entrepreneurial opportunities abroad as he was challenged multiple times by Kwasi Thompson, the east Grand Bahama MP, over the recently-released 8.8 percent national unemployment rate.

The Opposition’s finance spokesman, and former minister of state for finance, twice interrupted the Prime Minister to assert that Mr Davis was being “disingenuous” to focus on the unemployment rate alone. He repeated arguments made to Tribune Business that this was “a smokescreen” that masked the five-figure reductions in the size of the Bahamian workforce and number of persons employed since the last pre-Dorian and COVID Labour Force Survey in May 2019.

Comparing the May 2023 findings with those from four years ago, Mr Thompson said data from the Bahamas National Statistical Institute (BNSI) showed that during this period the workforce has seemingly shrunk from 237,525 in the May 2019 survey to 219,465 now - a drop of almost 8 percent or just over 18,000 persons.

Similarly, Mr Thompson told this newspaper that the number of employed Bahamian workers had also shrunk over the same period - by almost 7 percent or just over 14,000 persons, falling from 214,890 to 200,175 today. Warning that a shrinking workforce would have negative consequences for present and future economic growth, he questioned how the number of working Bahamians could have fallen despite the influx of school leavers in each of the past four years.

Mr Thompson intervened during yesterday’s House of Assembly proceedings after the Prime Minister hailed the official 8.8 percent unemployment, and compared it to both the 9.5 percent rate from May 2019 and what was achieved during the other years of the Minnis administration’s term in office.

“Our unemployment rate is now lower than the previous administration’s best pre-Dorian and pre-COVID years. And we are now setting records for the number of tourist arrivals coming in each month. This year we will welcome over eight million visitors to our shores. This is the story of a country that has shaken off the worst of multiple crises and is finally headed in the right direction,” Mr Davis asserted.

This sparked Mr Thompson to protest that the Prime Minister is “misleading this House”. Pointing out that the number of persons said to be employed by the May 2023 survey was less than those in work four years earlier, he argued: “The 8.7 percent is again a smokescreen because you have less persons employed today than you had in 2019. You have less persons employed today than in 2017.

“That is the point we ought to be debating. We ought to be debating why we have less people employed today than we had back in 2019 and had back in 2017. We have less people employed.” According to the 2017 Labour Force Survey, some 203,730 persons were employed in November 2017 as opposed to 200,175 at May 2023.

Mr Davis replied by accusing Mr Thompson of being “totally disingenuous”, and added: “If you want to interpret what the Bahamas National Statistical Institute has said, that’s your view. What I’m saying to you is the unemployment rate.. You cannot tell me how to present. You cannot be abusive. Listen, man. Listen.

“Madam speaker, let me put my case. I say the unemployment rate is the best in years. Accept that. If you now want to... That’s the context you want to put it in.” After repeating that The Bahamas has “shaken off multiple crises”, Mr Davis reiterated: “We inherited record high levels of unemployment. A minister in the previous administration speculated that the unemployment rate could have been as high as 50 percent at one point during the pandemic.

“A Labour Force Survey conducted in 2019, prior to the pandemic, stated that the unemployment rate was 9.5 percent. A new Labour Force Survey has just been completed, and the unemployment rate is now down to 8.8 percent. This number is not only an improvement on the 2019, 2018, and 2017 unemployment rates, it is the lowest recorded unemployment rate since the onset of the 2008 global recession.

“It is wonderful to see so many Bahamians working, and we know there’s still much more to do.” Mr Thompson then interrupted again on a ‘point of order’ to argue: “Again, the Prime Minister is misleading the House. It’s not better because you have less people employed today than you had employed in 2017. You have less people employed today. You have 200,000 persons employed today. That is 14,000....”

This triggered a full-blown House of Assembly row, with Alfred Sears KC, minister of works and utilities, quoting the rules book and Patricia Deveaux, the House speaker, twice warning Opposition leader, Michael Pintard, about his conduct. Government members teased their Opposition counterparts by demanding that they “look at the numbers” and asking “where have they gone” in relation to the missing thousands.

“I understand, I understand,” the Prime Minister replied. “They’re confused. They’re trying to understand how we here are able to achieve what we’re achieving in less than two months.” Chester Cooper, deputy prime minister, asserted: “They don’t like good news.” Mr Davis added ‘Good news hurts, but it’s like the truth.”

He soon accused Mr Thompson of being “disingenuous”, adding: “I have the answer. I won’t walk down that lane till I come back at him. Very disingenuous, very disingenuous.... I know why. Let me tell you why.... What’s the cause of the shrinkage? This litany of rules that occurred under your watch. That’s why it shrunk. This litany of rules. What you did to the Bahamian people.

“We’re bringing them back home. We’re bringing them all back home. You know how many nurses, how many doctors left the country because of you all?” Mr Thompson, though, stuck to his concerns. “I believe even talking to non-political people and raising the issue with them, their question was: Why was there for the first time a decrease in the actual labor force, and why there was a significant decrease in the number of employed persons,” he added.

“And the question is: Is the Government looking at, or going to ask the Department of Statistics or the Bahamas National Statistical Institute, to look at that figure and why that was a decrease? Because it is obvious that the number of employed persons decreased over the amount of years and so, is the Bahamas National Statistical Institute is going to look at why that labour force actually decreased.”

Wayde Watson, the parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and MP for Bain and Grant’s Town, conceded that the Bahamas National Statistical Institute must answer that question but maintained that the unemployment rate is lower than it was before 2019.

He said: ”The reality is, at the end of the day, the unemployment rate is determined by the total number of persons in the pool. And, at this particular time, the unemployment rate in The Bahamas is lower than it was back in pre-2019. But we’ll have to take those other matters into consideration, look more deeper and the Bahamas National Statistical Institute will have to provide us with that particular answer.”