British Virgin Islands: Work permits bring in much needed revenue for the territory but on the other hand there is a need to balance the 60-40 work force dominated by expatriate workers thereby increasing employment among BVI Islanders. This is the view of Labour Minister Dr. Kedrick Pickering as he addressed the fourth meeting organized by the Ministry of Labour aimed at looking at labour-related issues affecting the territory and getting the people’s output, according to report on BVInews.com.
Speaking at the Sir Rupert Briercliffe Hall, Dr. Pickering said one of the biggest labour issues facing the territory is work permits. “Work permits are a double edged sword,” the Minister said. “Some people think that the Government should continue to give out work permits because it’s a source of revenue, which it probably is, but it is a source of revenue that although justifiable, is something we have to ask ourselves: how much revenue we really want to get from work permits, because a work permit means that is one additional person that is coming into the country, and if we don’t decide how many persons we want to bring into the country, at what rate we want to bring them into the country we will soon be overwhelmed…And I am not just saying that for those of us who are indigenous Virgin islanders, I am saying that even for people who have chosen to live here and call this home and been living here for 25-plus years. It is a serious dilemma we are going to face if we don’t make the relevant decisions as to exactly how we are going to allow it to grow.”
The BVInews.com report stated that the Minister said there is a situation in the country where work permits are being used as a method of getting people into the country. “There are people who are paying for work permits to bring people into the country because if you don’t have a work permit, Immigration will not give you time, and in some cases these people don’t even have work,” he said. The Minister said the unemployment situation is beginning to be a problem. He made mention of the efforts by the Minister of Education, Myron Walwyn, to have young people employed . He said most of them are genuinely looking for work and they cannot find work yet there are so many people still on work permits.
“What are we going to do? Are we going to start not renewing people’s work permits? Not giving new work permits? Those are difficult questions that we have to answer,” he said. Dr. Pickering said in June a number of persons will be graduating from high schools and the college who will want to join the workforce, as well as a number of overseas students who will be returning home looking for jobs.
“What are we going to do? We have people in the country who are on work permits, are we going to continue to allow them to be here on work permits or not? And then we have the vexing problem of the different types of work permits that the country issues. One of them is a temporary work permit and especially in the yachting industry they are using that temporary work permit to bring people in on a disguise that they are only coming for a short time and they are staying longer and crowding out the yachting industry to a point where it is not attractive to BVIslanders to want to be in the yachting industry. Can we afford that to continue to happen?” Dr. Pickering asked.
He said the problems are just multiplying. “Are we just going to sit back and allow these things to happen or are we going to make decisions?…The labour situation in the country is such that we have about a 60 to 40 split, about 60 percent of the work force are non-BVI Islanders, which means that only about 50 percent of the workforce is BVI Islanders. If you delve into that subject a little bit further, you will start to recognize that that has enormous implications for the social fabric of our society.”
The BInews.com report said that the Labour Minister outlined the problems that contribute to this situation. “We have a society in which the economy is growing and will continue to grow. Against this background we have to ask ourselves who in fact we are growing the economy for, and at the same time, anything that does not grow and becomes stagnant it dies, so I don’t think any of us can say we have to stop growing the economy because life does not do well in stagnant situations. “One of the big problems facing this country is a decision that has to be made at some point in time in which we are going to ask ourselves what number we want to see the population grow to and how are we going to let the population to grow to that level, because if we don’t make decisions like those in a proactive way … the problems are going to be even worse than we will be able to cope with.”
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