Self-employment driving down jobless figures

More Barbadians are starting their own businesses, contributing to a falling unemployment rate this year.

Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment Marsha Caddle reported today, as she spoke on the Public Procurement Bill, 2021, in Parliament on Tuesday, that Barbados’ most recent unemployment numbers for the last quarter of 2021 stand at 12.4 per cent.

Caddle said in the first quarter of 2021 unemployment stood at 17.2 per cent while it stood at 13.2 per cent when the island went into shutdown mode again due to a second wave of the COVID-19 virus back in February.

She said, during the second quarter of 2021, the unemployment rate had fallen to 15.9 per cent.

“So, unemployment has steadily decreased in Barbados over the last two quarters from 17.2, to 15.9 to 12.4. But something else happened with employment in Barbados in that period and before that period. Prior to COVID Barbados was perhaps one of the few countries in the region that saw female unemployment lower than male unemployment. So, there were fewer women unemployed, prior to COVID, than men. That doesn’t often happen. Usually, historically, across Latin America and the Caribbean women’s unemployment is higher than men’s,” she said.

Caddle said because more women were employed in the tourism and hospitality sectors which were hard hit by the pandemic, at a ratio of two to one, women lost their employment. However, she said over the last three quarters of 2021, women’s unemployment rate has decreased.

She said according to the Labour Force Survey, for the third quarter of 2021, male unemployment stood at 12.5 per cent while female unemployment was recorded at 12.3 per cent.

“Why am I talking about unemployment in the context of procurement? Because, as a Government, we have had to and continue to have to look at affirmative action as a policy. Affirmative action has been a bad word in many countries that have not been willing to confront the reality of inequality. They have not been willing to confront the fact that their societies are unequal.

“In a country the size of Barbados, we cannot always allow for the market to take over. And so, where the private sector stood still in a pandemic because it had to, the Government of Barbados had to come in to stand in the breach, through our capital works programme and through the establishment of a mechanism whereby small contractors in communities could have access to Government’s capital works programme,” Caddle said.

She said the survey shows that Government employment has remained stable, while private employment has fallen. But, Caddle said it also shows that there has been an increase in Barbadians becoming self-employed in certain trades that are key for capital works and have also been registering their companies.

“What we believe is happening is that people are becoming small business owners, people are becoming small contractors, are setting up their own companies, are working as self-employed to get access to contracts, to get access to provide goods and services and so on. This legislation has the capacity to expand the range of opportunities for people to earn better income.” (AH)