I am joined by the Minister of Labour, the Hon. Jason Hayward, JP, MP, to discuss Bermuda’s filled jobs and workforce.
Today, I will highlight The Bermuda Job Market Employment Briefs report from the Department of Statistics, and Minister Hayward will speak to the continued effort of his Ministry to support, train and guide our workforce.
This latest edition of The Bermuda Job Market Employment Briefs examines employment changes from 2019 and 2020.
This particular report provides a snapshot of employment in Bermuda during the week of August 30th to September 5th 2020.
Just some general background, the annual Employment Survey is a census of all businesses on the island. It serves the purpose of providing a broad count of all filled jobs in the Bermuda labour market. Users are cautioned against making direct comparisons with the Labour Force Survey and census results because the results are not comparable. The age of jobholders is not limited to persons sixteen years and older, as is the case for the working population in the Labour Force Survey and the census reports. In addition, the employment counts presented in this publication represent all filled jobs. In contrast, the Labour Force Survey and census provide the number of people working in their main job, irrespective of the number of jobs held.
As I indicated, data collected for this report was from a week in late August to early September.
As we know last year was particularly difficult, where many businesses, employers and employees were affected by the challenges in our economy and labour market due to the pandemic.
So it’s important to understand and appreciate the context and background as we review and assess these statistics.
The overall level of employment was impacted by economic contractions caused by the pandemic.
The 2020 employment total includes 730 jobs whose holders were made redundant during the reference week.
While the main findings of this report focus on employment changes between 2019 and 2020 the report also shows employment changes between 2016 and 2019.
Prior to the pandemic, Bermuda was experiencing encouraging job growth with employment on an upward trajectory from 33,481 filled jobs in 2016 to 34,378 in 2019, an increase of nearly 900 jobs.
The industrial groups that fueled the job growth during this period were the Accommodation and Food Service Activities sector with an increase of 562 jobs, the Construction and Quarrying sector, up 261 jobs and Public Administration with 212 more jobs over the four-year pre-pandemic period.
As it stands, key highlights between 2019 and 2020 are as follows:
- Total filled jobs declined by 1,951 jobs or 5.7% from 34,378 jobs in 2019 to 32,427 in 2020.
- Males and females registered 1,076 and 875 fewer filled jobs, respectively, while Bermudians and other Non-Bermudians recorded job losses of 1,091 and 666, respectively.
- The number of jobs held by blacks, whites and persons of mixed and other races dropped by 902,577 and 472 filled jobs, respectively.
- Filled jobs within the Accommodations and Food Services Industry contracted 23.4% (-1,100) to 3,591.
- Filled jobs among Service Workers, and Shop and Market Sales Workers declined by 15.9% (-1,183) from 7,427 jobs to 6,244.
- The median gross annual income for all job holders increased by 3.8% (+$2,375) from $62,693 to $65,068. The year-over-year percentage increase in median employment income exceeded the annual average inflation rate of -0.7% in August 2020.
Lastly, I wish to emphasize that this Government remains committed to investing in our people, encouraging small business development and growing our economy, despite the challenges that we face.
In closing, I want to thank all the businesses that completed the annual Employment Surveys.
More in-depth cross-tabulations on Bermuda’s job market are published in the 2020 Employment Survey Tabulation Set.
The 2021 Employment Briefs and the Tabulation Set are available on the Bermuda Government website at gov.bm/employment-statistics.
Thank you.