NASSAU, BAHAMAS — An estimated 219,000 individuals make up the country’s labour force, and officials believe approximately one-third of labourers are making minimum wage, according to Labour Director Robert Farquharson.
Farquharson said officials, however, are still awaiting statistics from the labour report survey which has been rescheduled.
“The labour force survey should have been conducted in September of this year, it had to be delayed until January because the Department of Statistics is now finalizing the national census,” he said.
Hundreds have acquired employment as a result of the Labour on the Blocks 2.0 program and Farquharson says that they are seeking to facilitate more in upcoming job fairs, however, he added that there are not enough people registering with the department of labour.
“Since the onset of the pandemic, lots of employers have been seeking people to work, particularly in the construction sector and in the tourism and hospitality sector and in a number of other sectors,” Farquharson said.
Inflation, high fuel costs, and large-scale imports have been a growing issue in recent years which have left many residents, including those currently employed, struggling to make ends meet.
Statistics from the local food charity Hands for Hunger show that one in three persons worry that they may not have enough food to eat and one in five have gone an entire day without eating because they have not been able to afford food.
Farquharson added that plans to increase the minimum wage will offer some relief to workers across the country.
“I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the government of the Bahamas has been actively pursuing, and I believe is in the final details of increasing the minimum wage.
“The increase in minimum wage will give those men and women a bit more buy-in power […] The cost of living has increased because we depend so much in our country on imports.
“And imports depend a lot on the cost of fuel and that’s up and down, but the government I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt is considering and is about to make some announcements regarding an increase in the minimum wage and I think that in itself, those employees also will have more ability to buy,” he said.
On the other side of things, the Access Accelerator Small Business Development Center (SBDC) reported that entrepreneurship is on the rise. Since its inception in 2018, the organization has spent approximately 73 million dollars on assisting almost two thousand businesses.
SBDC Interim Executive Director Samantha Rolle says inflation and the increasing cost of living are also a concern for many small business owners, and the increase in minimum wage will also impact their bottom line.
“With any business the minute you talk about minimum wage increase it adds more expenditure to your personal costs right, salary costs,” she said.
“However […] you know the cost of living has increased and so there should always be some level of projection moving forward to kind of undercut those costs or to try and find other revenue generating ways or other ways to cut expenses outside of personnel to assist with that added cost.”
Rolle says the challenges have prompted innovation in the forms of more digitization and thinking outside of the ‘brick-and-mortar’ box. She added that as the pandemic shifts away behind us people are becoming more inclined to spend.
“I think that there is definitely more opportunity as well as consumers are feeling more and more comfortable to spend.”
Rolle said: “However I also believe that what has happened in terms of that, is it forced us to think outside of the brick and mortar concept to becoming more along the lines of digital but then also creating different companies and ventures to do more digital and e-commerce platforms and those types of concepts.
“There are greater opportunities in terms of consumer spending because people are becoming more and more comfortable and the bottom is less stress than it was when we were in the height of the pandemic.”
