Optimism employment will rise

There is increasing optimism that the staggering unemployment figure of 17.2 per cent will gradually decline in the months ahead, once tourism projections hold true and other Government initiatives continue picking up steam.

But even as Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s Special Envoy on Economic Investment, Professor Avinash Persaud gave the relatively positive outlook, he conceded there is far too much uncertainty to make realistic predictions.

He said the first-quarter unemployment figures came as no surprise and, in fact, point to a steady improvement from over 30 per cent in the early days of the pandemic.

The economic advisor also pointed to Government’s unwavering support for the Barbados Employment and Sustainable Transformation (BEST) programme, ongoing capital works initiatives and an island-wide re-education programme to put more people back to work.

“Clearly, we are not comfortable about any level of elevated unemployment and the hope is that everyone goes back to work, but I think given the context of 90 per cent in revenues from the tourism sector that employs 40 per cent of people, this number cannot be a surprise to anybody. If anything, we feared it might have been worse and indeed it was much higher than that,” Professor Persaud told Barbados TODAY.

“I think the worst point in Barbados was probably the last week in April [2020] and probably May in terms of job losses. I don’t have the official numbers, but I think the broadest sense of unemployment must have been in the high 30s. So, the fact that we are back at 17 suggests that the recovery has started, it’s underway, it’s got further to go,” he added.

Nevertheless, Professor Persaud, who has spent most of his professional life in the area of economic forecasting, admitted that not even he could predict the future of unemployment under the current climate.

“I think in these environments, you can’t worry about trying to project. You need to have a clear objective, which is below double digits and hopefully, we can get back to the kind of unemployment numbers we had back in 2008, which was more like a seven to eight per cent level and that would be our goal,” Persaud explained.

“But it would be a mug’s game to try and predict the course of COVID. We are focused on the objective and doing whatever we can to get us there, as opposed to having a map as to where we will be. I think it will be an impossible thing to do.

“I wish I could give you more but I don’t think it makes economic sense as an economist to be doing that because it’s being driven by factors that are not in our control,” the Professor added.

Projections of a gradual increase from single-digit occupancy to occupancy levels as high as 50 per cent within the tourism sector, as early as November, appear to be the main driver behind the positive outlook.

Professor Persaud was also adamant that as the pandemic undergoes numerous “twists and turns”, there are other initiatives, like Government’s Coursera subscription that gives Barbadians access to as many as 50 000 contemporary educational courses, as well as more traditional strategies like the BEST programme that is currently keeping more than 2 200 tourism workers employed.

“You are also seeing a lot of road building and house building going on for resilient and affordable homes. Those things generate a lot of employment and revenues early on. You may have heard of the HOPE initiative, where we hope to get around 2 000 affordable homes with different levels of affordability. Homes and roads are very important in getting people to work in the short run. If we want them to work in the long run, we all have to have more skills, up-to-date skills, allowing us to expand what we can do and the income we can earn, which allows us to employ people as well,” Persaud explained.

According to the Barbados Statistical Service report, there were 22 000 people unemployed at the end of the first quarter and, according to President of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) Edward Clarke, the problems could only be solved with a full reopening of the economy bolstered by a tourism rebound.
(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)