Local unemployment up to 5% even as workforce grows
(CNS): Unemployment statistics appear to be going in the wrong direction, according to the latest numbers from the Economics and Statistics office. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) Fall 2023 Report shows that the overall unemployment rate was 3.3% in October last year, but the number of Caymanians out of work had increased to 5% (357 more people) when compared to October 2022, even as the overall labour force itself grew by more than 5%, with a 2.2% increase in local workers finding a job. There are now over 60,500 people in the workforce, 58,500 of them working, 21,563 of whom are Caymanian.
Although Cayman now has a record-breaking labour force number and a record number of people actually in work, local unemployment rose to 1,143 people in October compared to 796 unemployed locals the year before and 842 in the spring of 2022.
So even as more Caymanians have jobs as more are created, more Caymanians were unemployed in the fall, which could indicate that high school and college graduates are pushing up the jobless figures. Almost 6% of the workforce is under 24 years old, but only around half of them are actually working.
The report also estimates that the population had grown by another 3.9% by the end of 2023 to reach 84,738, though the upper estimates suggest as many as 89,951 people are now living on these islands.
The Caymanian population rose by just 0.9% at the end of last year to 39,068, while the number of permanent residents grew from 6,629 in October 2022 to 7,690. The non-Caymanian population was estimated to be 37,980, an increase of 4.9% relative to the 2022 numbers, although the higher estimate indicates that the population of expatriates could now be over 43,000, according to the report.
There are estimated to be 72,803 people living in Cayman who are aged over 15 and legally able to work at least part-time. The labour force is 60,513 — the largest in the history of the Cayman Islands. But the unemployment rate for Caymanians increased from the rate of 3.6% in the autumn 2022 report, among the lowest ever, and from 3.7% in the spring of 2023 to 5% in the autumn 2023 report.
However, the number of Caymanians who say they are under-employed has fallen by some 50%, with 629 working fewer hours than they would like compared to 1,344 who were under-employed in October 2022.
According to the report, almost 20% of all employed Caymanians are professionals, and over 19% are technicians and associate professionals. Some 16.2% are managers, while over 12% work in service or sales, and 9.6% are clerical support workers. Expat workers are predominantly employed in service and sales or craft and related trades work, accounting for over 40%, while only 17% of non-Caymanians are professionals.
Overall, well over half of the workforce earns less than CI$3,600 per month, and more than 20,700 people earn less than $2,400 each month.
Almost half of the population lives in George Town, where 41,695 people reside. West Bay is home to 18,799 people, while 17,164 live in Bodden Town. There are 2,524 people in East End and 2,292 in North Side, which is now the least populated district on Grand Cayman. However, the Sister Islands are home to just 2,265 people, according to the report.
See the full report here.
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Category: Jobs, Local News
To many Caymanians simply lack ambition. Opportunities are here for those that want it. The Caymanians with ambition and a desire to succeed are the ones doing well. It starts with you. Rather than stick a hand out to needs assessment, pull up your socks, make maximum effort to educate yourself, and put yourself in a position where you as an educated, hard working Caymanian cannot be refused a good income earning job. Quit blaming the expats and the government. Be your own hero.
If you say so. Try opening a business bank account for a legitimate licensed company and report back in 6 months. Cayman is absolutely paralytic when it comes to any type of real world commercial enterprise expectations.
Sounds like a you and the bank problem.
Agreed. Also, young Caymanian girls need to level up! Expect more out of the men you associate yourself with! Stop getting knocked up for guys that can even support themselves. End the cycle of bad choices! Put yourself, your education, and your career FIRST! Develop yourself before you even think about having children that you can’t afford. I beg Caymanian girls to take a look at girls and women in their own families that had children at a young age. How did that work out for them?? Then why put yourself through the same misery? Want more for yourself and want more out of your life! If he’s not educating himself and trying to better his own life, he should NOT be good enough for YOU!
A certain demographic of young people have lost any sense of shame.
Following Jamaican norms is the ruin of Caymanian society.
Not true. Most Caymanians are ambitious and hard working. The issue in most institutions is you have expats who look out for expats by motivating and encouraging them by way of pay, promotions, training, etc and the Caymanian is blacklisted or sent on some chambers course whilst the expats goes on some overseas course. As long as you have work permits and PR as one of the key contribution to government revenue, nothing will change.
i see Jamaicans in CBC/immigration Hospital front desks, etc, etc. Filipinas/Honduras at CAL, Filipinas in Sotts office etc,etc, yet they say young Brackers has to go Grand to get jobs, why ????? some of them may have status, but what about the true Caynanians ?
Fascinating article and discussion gents. I am behooved that many research has shown that Caymanians are one of the hardest working if not the hardest working culture in the entire world and maybe even the galaxy.
As we embark on this hour and as I behooved myself out of bed it is a fact the people need Dwayne the Rock Seymour to enlighten us all on this matter. Deport all expats but keep expat employers but maybe keep some expats just in case Bobo doesn’t show up for work for a day week late for work ok maybe keep expats cause Bobo is useless but Bobo should be getting paid more than expats. Dwayne the Rock Seymour we need you now guide us with your ray of light as the aged expression goes dis ship be in ruff wata but still dis turd still floats no matter how many times flushed.
THAT WAS YEARS AGO WHEN CAYMANIANS WAS HARD WORKING PEOPLE. Sad to day that’s not the case any more. when Government say can’t fire anyone, and gives the lazy people more than they can earn on minimum wages, thate the PROBLEM .
The Need Assessment pays out more money than what some of the employers want to pay Caymanians. Why should a Caymanians give up the money from needs assessment to go work for less.
Until the government but a good minimum wage inforce I doubt these unemployed is going to look work. But depend on the NAU.
come up with some numbers please
Raise minimum wage to a (barely) living wage of $15-18/hr plus add tougher restrictions on Caymanian permit sponsors that don’t deliver on guaranteed employment hours, or follow labour law rights, towards our indentured guest workers (many of them cannot afford to leave if they wanted to). Marry some baseline responsibilities to those work permit sponsors and >10,000 WPs will be driven to the airport, relieving pressure on numerous community issues that seem to stupefy our leadership. Add-back that foregone WP contribution to CIG General Revenue, from a traffic department that actually shows up.
You obviously don’t own a business and never took economics 1.
Why not just make a million dollars your wage?
Doing nothing = NAU = $4450/mo, or KYD$53,400/yr = KYD$27.8125/hour, based on a normal 40 hour work week. So the real world motivation gap is >$21/hr to put down the spliff and find clean pants.
https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/03/nau-offers-more-resources-under-new-policies/
$4.8K a month – for doing nothing at all. Minimum wage $8.75 an hour. So you would have to work 548 hours a month or 137 hours a week at minimum age to match the handouts available from NAU. Break even at 40 hrs a week would be $30 an hour. Now tell me we dont have a problem when it pays Caymanians more not to work than to get a job.
have pride. don’t beg, go to work in any job and work your way up
9:26 pm, Pride, need pride ,stop asking for hand out, others to work.
for you. Remember it’s not such a thing as a free lunch, some one has to pay for it.
Simple Solution stop importing poverty !Stop looking to and voting for our absolutely No F%@#ing use Political scumbags and senior civil servants for solutions!
There are many civil servants that hold dozens of work permits through their “side hustle” businesses. Bar them from running two jobs on the same paid time, and maybe the CIG would actually do some work in those hours we are already paying for.
DG included.
There is at least one country where the impact of an unsustainable tourism and immigration model has been recognised by the population.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/20/thousands-protest-canary-islands-unsustainable-tourism
Over Tourism from this article perfectly describes the situtation that many island lands face.
Tell that to the Ministers whose lifestyle depends on Jamaican bus and taxi drivers.
Dear ESO: how many Caymanians are earnestly making or supplementing their livelihood, from doing something illegal? ie. career embezzlement, contract-enrichment, political contract kick-backing, drugs, money laundering, transshipment, smuggling? As featured in our CFATF report cards, these are the hidden industrial career pathways that the ESO won’t even put a statistics category header on. Many unemployed are very busy working in that hidden layer, clearly. No permit required. No stats extrapolated, or published. Must be tens of thousands.
Its 100% part of the Caymanian culture
For certain surnames, and lineages, certainly seems that way.
I’m sorry: you genuinely believe tens of thousands of Caymanians are involved in crime?
Are you aware that would be every Caymanian, 10th generation to yesterday’s grant recipient?
Just create some more government jobs for them.
Unemployable is different from unemployed and should have its own category here. But it doesn’t. Not hard to see why unless your a unemployable voter.
you are = you’re
While we’re at it… it’s AN unemployable…
Enforce the Caymanian Protection Law, increase minimum wage, and bring back internationally regarded education systems – or we will perish. It is that simple.
It’s all very well enforcing the “Protection Law” (how awful is that term) but the quality of many of those leaving school or applying for key roles is so poor our key industries would fail within three years. It is that simple. This isn’t a simple issue.
Wait, is it simple or not?
It’s as simple as not employing Jamaicans.
You do know that the Caymanian Protection Law has been repealed for years now right ?
When people say that they mean ‘the things that were originally in the Protection Law’. They’re asking for investigation and enforcement against everything from fronting to sham marriages to prejudicial HR practices.
No it wasn’t. They just changed its name and stopped enforcing it.
There must be someone out there who knows how to fix our education system from the very early years all the way to high school. Please can they help us? We are in great need. A huge number of our social problems stem from this problem.
Holding back the failing G-grade diploma graduates for a do-over, is too politically costly and idea – even if it’s the most reasonable expectation with baseline standards.
If you’re Caymanian & you’re struggling but refuse to become a registered voter to avoid jury duty, you’re apart of the problem and should suffer in silence. People fail to realize we have so much power and can hold these politicians accountable when they fail us. We could literally vote every single one of them out and I bet you then productivity of our ministers will increase. Get registered and vote the ministers responsible for this mess OUT!
This country is going from bad to worse really quickly and we can’t even hear from the Premier. Since ousting Wayne Panton she hasn’t been seen or heard from much at all and we’re seeing these piss poor statistics around education and employment. Shows how much our politicians care about us…
Local unemployment is, in effect, a myth. There seem to be four substantive problems:
1. MINIMUM WAGE
The minimum wage is criminally low. This is entirely in the hands of Caymanian politicians. Increase the minimum wage to the USD 20 / KYD 16.60 which California recently introduced (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-fast-food-20-minimum-wage-law-prices/), and stop importing poverty (and crime). Obviously, there would be fewer kick-backs from developers for MLAs though, so that won’t happen… (see Wendy’s superb editorial: https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/09/donkeys-developers-and-deaf-ears).
2. WELFARE / WOTE-BUYING
NAU provides up to KYD 4,450/month, or USD 5,340. That’s USD 64,080 per year. Why bother working? (https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/03/nau-offers-more-resources-under-new-policies)
3. ATTITUDE
There are 15,439 Jamaican work permit holders, (42% of the total), and 6,219 Filipinos. Almost all are doing service sector jobs which Caymanians refuse to do. (https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/03/number-of-work-permit-holders-reaches-new-record).
4. EDUCATION
Caymanians simply aren’t qualified for many jobs:
https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/04/education-data-report-reflects-poor-school-results/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/05/report-shows-school-leaver-results-drop-from-peak/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2022/04/almost-60-of-year-11-students-miss-2021-exam-targets.
https://caymannewsservice.com/2019/09/school-standards-gap/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2018/12/2018-year-11-exam-results/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2017/05/education-results-fall-in-2016-data-report/
https://www.caymancompass.com/2016/01/21/barlow-education-versus-protection
https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2015/05/caymans-entitlement-culture.html
Have I missed anything?
37000 expat workers. 1200 unemployed Caymanians. So sure… plenty of jobs available for Caymanians if they are qualified and willing to do them, but you cant get rid of the expat workers without massively shrinking the economy, even at Caymanian full employment. yet no shortage of people thinking the solution is to have a moratorium on work permits. Your 4 substantive problems are the real issue.
How many are getting paid by government not to work?
There’s no motivation to work for anyone currently collecting cheques for doing nothing.
Try to imagine how violent and widespread the crime would be if the unemployables got nothing from NAU.
Try to imagine how many would get off their lazy backsides and find work.
Unless elderly or disabled ( legit disabled), give a certain time limit to collect benefits. Also, drug test and put on birth control. It’s too easy for people to collect forever, do nothing except sit around and get high and have more babies.
I guess Kenneth will say, in his delusional opinion, that the Dept of Environment is the biggest hurdle to Caymanians getting jobs
beetlejuice beetlejuice beetlejuice!
“Almost 6% of the workforce is under 24 years old, but only around half of them are actually working.”
WHAT???? There are a lot of entry level jobs advertised and available. So 50% of under 24’s are either unable to get any job because they don’t have the right skills, right attitude, or are poorly educated, OR they don’t want to work and are happy to live off handouts.
This is unsustainable for the future if half of all Caymanians don’t work.
Im trying to figure out now how Dwayne, Julianna and Jay will try to blame this on the DoE and the NCC?
Just give it time
How many of those unemployed are the children of Mac’s status give away and foreign Civil Servants?
How many are not but are unemployable.
A great many. We should also know how many got their grounding in CXC’s, rather than American, British or IB equivalents.
So many of Cayman’s problems are imported from the east.
Blame blame blame. That’s the game.
Education Ministers wanted Caribbeanisation…and da wa we got.
Does it really matter? We are HERE. Let us wrangle how to deal with all our current situations.
An Inward Investor Formula
(Perfect Storm):
Pizz poor elementary education system=failing high schoolers×expat educators and civil servants setting us up for failure while importing cousins and friends + more popular and prisons ÷ easy designer drugs+Jam drug canoes (weed+guns)$ > Easy “Lazy/Uneducated labels & apathy/anger / “Starvation Salary” <locals&3rd world masses = crime and self cannibalism (initially)× all-out social collapse @ UK Military intervention.
How about also cultural identity appropriation and over extending the housing and property markets.
Translated – Lets blame everyone else.
You forgot our corrupt “friends” in da Lodge.
And we have a winner.
Those that want to work can find work. But there are those that would rather ride their bikes around west bay and ask for quarters in hopes of getting a 345 beer.
Lazy is lazy.
Cayman is run for business owners and elites, not for the career deployment and upward mobility of youth or unskilled classes. Minimum wage remains far below living wage levels for even far cheaper cost of living jurisdictions. Increasingly it is all that’s being offered, even on skilled labour positions, with a pervasive take it or leave it attitude.
It’s business owners that provide jobs, not vote getting words from ministers.
https://youtu.be/A1fVvGRlFoE?si=xsmjSLdGX5p7RzrI
At least they’re being frugal
Ride around Bodden Town too with their Jamaican layabout friends. The 345 beer is the same though.
Local unemployment is a myth. There seem to be three problems:
1. ATTITUDE
There are 15,439 Jamaican work permit holders, (42% of the total), and 6,219 Filipinos. Almost all are doing service sector jobs which Caymanians refuse to do. (https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/03/number-of-work-permit-holders-reaches-new-record)
2. WELFARE / WOTE-BUYING
NAU provide up to KYD 4,450/month, or USD 5,340. That’s USD 64,080 per year. Why bother working? (https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/03/nau-offers-more-resources-under-new-policies)
3. EDUCATION
Caymanians simply aren’t qualified for many jobs:
https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/04/education-data-report-reflects-poor-school-results/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/05/report-shows-school-leaver-results-drop-from-peak/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2022/04/almost-60-of-year-11-students-miss-2021-exam-targets.
https://caymannewsservice.com/2019/09/school-standards-gap/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2018/12/2018-year-11-exam-results/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2017/05/education-results-fall-in-2016-data-report/
https://www.caymancompass.com/2016/01/21/barlow-education-versus-protection
https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2015/05/caymans-entitlement-culture.html
Have I missed anything?
Stop looking for jobs and start looking for careers.
The employment you choose to pursue should align with your strategic plan to have a successful career.
Show up early. Stay late. Dress and behave professionally at all times. Get along with your co-workers and management. Complete all assignments correctly and with enthusiasm.
Do these and you will be successful.
You forgot one. calling in sick after the weekend.
Having long term career goals is great but Caymanians need to bring that attitude to every job they do and realize that all jobs don’t need to be some kind of huge career stepping stone.
Unfortunately there are too many people in Cayman too proud to do basic labour they consider beneath them and too many parents that look down on their children who would even think about doing a basic service industry job if even for extra pocket money.
We hire people halfway around the world to clean a table.
“Show up early, stay late”
You mean work for free to the benefit of my employer? Saying this not even 2 weeks before Emancipation Day is too audacious.
That’s the effort it takes to succeed. You ARE the problem.
yawn….a story of people who refuse to work.
the fact that we have 40k+ work permit holders here is proof.
Could you support you and your family on $6.00/hour? Could you? If given the alternative of that or getting hooked up with the NAU, what would you choose?
Oh, but wait. CIG makes money on work permits. Not so much if Caymanians are working.
There is the crux of the problem, imvho.
If you don’t like the wages being offered, use your talents to propel yourself into higher wage jobs or ahem, start your own business.
I know these methods require effort which is why you’d rather cry like a baby about forcing others to pay you more.
I am self-employed and doing fine, Bobo. I am advocating for Caymanians who have to compete for jobs with underpaid expats, for jobs that won’t begin to pay for their bills. Do you get that? CAN you get that?
Could you live on $6.00 per hour Mr. Cry-like-a-Baby? Could you? Tell me how you would survive.
P.s. you really suck. You don’t appear to care about native Caymanians. No, you just want to cubbyhole them as broken bottles and throwaways. Let me tell you, there are those who have struggled all their lives here, and still can’t make it. You would just throw them away.
You are part of the problem. Me? I give a hand up wherever possible, because I see what they go through. I don’t give a dime to terminal drinkers, but those that are truly fighting, I help them out, and don’t ask for ANY recognition.
You are so perfect. I wish I was special. You’re so XXXX special.
BS alert.
Why don’t you write in fake slang?
I am talking about Caymanians coming out of high school. What are their options? If they are really, really lucky (and connected), they get into government, and ride the golden ticket throughout their lives.
What about the rest? Should our Caymanians that don’t get CIG jobs “cry like a baby”?
p.s. you are an asshole who doesn’t understand what the youth face. I am SO glad your life is wonderful.
Nope. As a Caymanian with multiple qualifications and degrees from leading institutions overseas, I can confirm you are talking shit. There is a major problem, and if we are not very careful, there will be a reckoning.
Just a thought, but maybe it’s your attitude that is holding you back?
I hear you. Your MPs are not in your corner. We need a reckoning, but not a violent one. We need a political reckoning.
Please name what you consider “leading institutions”..hope it’s not on line places like California Coastal.
unemployable.
Certainly not at the indentured servitude KYD$6-8.75/hr minimum wage and WORC’s climate of easy permits. Be honest: would our “work ethic police” suit up for a 40 hour week themselves, in 100’F+ swelter, for that chicken feed? Probably not. Where can someone earning $1000/mo be expected to bunk on that pay, and what are they eating? Is there even water for drinking and sanitation? Transport options? Can they ever go home? It just doesn’t add up. If we expect Caymanians to also work on that, they’ll just stay home on the endless gov’t dole that we ALL ultimately pay for, one way or another. Better that we put in a real working wage, build competency and quality output, while perhaps sending thousands of cross-commitment day-to-day permit labourers home that are transiently attempting to pass work on two or three job sites, while finishing none properly. There is a serious labour inefficiency reading between these numbers.
Reading the headline before the article i wondered if new school leavers would have an impact. Halfway through, CNS mentions that half of Caymanians under 24 are unemployed. Jeez. If that’s not the proof we need for government to admit the schools are crap…then what is?
Absolutely devastating indictment of this and previous governments but given that half our school leavers are now functionally illiterate and or innumerate it maybe shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Intentionally so.
Why? To justify Cheap Import Labor.
Outcome?”Starvation Wages” paid; Locals shut out of workforce, especially in teens and 20s.
Results? Idleness, Anger, Shame, Crime, Drugs etc.
#Intentional Genocide!
Full stop. You know not what a genocide actually is.
good! caymanians sold their land to foreigners….lost control of islands…let pirates of caribbean use um in name of politics….ZZZZ…
Great job by our government led by Premier Juliana and labor minister Seymour. We have a booming economy showing no signs of stopping.
This issue is years in the making
Just put the unemployed to work for the government, what is the problem with that?
‘labour’, not USA
One just has to look at the level of education achieved by many of our politicians to see how much importance they place and the basic understanding of the need. We get what we vote for Cayman. Shameful.
“Purportedly homeless” drug addicts also seem to be up, with near daily moocher encounters causing obstructions in certain hotel/tourism parking lots. Even banging on car glass and doors, frightening children. Tourists can get all the social decay they want at home. With over 200+ licensed churches in the Cayman Islands, and a pubic CIG budget >KYD$1bln, and whole departments supposedly devoted to this, it’s hard to reconcile how anyone can be left to lurch around in public in this condition.
*pubic budget?
Soo, who is getting shafted then?!
Many of the urban normal social deliverables aren’t even on Department Head task lists. They, that need this help, or life rescue intervention to fix/save themselves, get lost, and we pay at least twice. Cayman’s hundreds of churches are MIA, busy with some other agenda.
Not surprising. Mirrors my experience. Positions seem to exist, but they just go to expats or internal promotions and everyone else is just there to show a process was followed.
Interesting that underemployment fell by 50% (the article). I wonder how much of the job market tightening is coming from people on part-time or shift work transitioning to full-time (or more shifts) within their current employer, i.e., winning recruitment (which isn’t a bad thing as that means the process is working). We’re talking about hundreds of people both in the unemployment increases and the under-employment decreases.
So people who were doing all right are now doing better and people who are circling the drain are going down it. That’s better for you? How about we all have jobs?
And there is one of the roots of our problems. The entitlement mindset persists.
He’s not talking about entitlement, you turd, he’s talking about survival. 🙁
perfect analysis
Cayman needs a chicken management program, like other tropical islands. They do real damage landscaping, private property, foul the land, carry infestations, disease and illness, and disturb the peace. We have ignored this problem for years too long, and it’s out of control. Put some Caymanians to work to eliminate this nuisance, improve quality of life and support a better tourist experience.
Not the chickens that disturb the peace…
Sitting outside Pop a Top doesn’t count as unemployment.
The myth continues. There is no such thing as local unemployment.
Com on, you can’t argue with the facts/numbers. We can argue about the many whys, but not that there is indeed some local unemployment. Calling it a myth just makes you sound like part of the problem. (Remember when gangs were a myth? Part of the problem.)
Being unemployable is not the same as being unemployed. There is no unemployment in the Cayman Islands.
He means no involuntary unemployment
There are many who are and will always be unemployable.
Pass the rum.
It’s not a myth. It’s very real. The people who still don’t have jobs are in serious trouble.
Exactly. There is plenty of work. This local unemployment idea is absolute nonsense.