Umm, the Bermuda Department of Statistics says the exact opposite. Who are we to believe, the politician or the mathematicians employed by the Bermuda Government?

I get 2 call’s a week for jobs, its not easy. There are those who are looking for work.

It’s not because they are not looking, our situation is serious, or maybe you head is in the here and now “your bucket of thoughts” while hundreds / thousands are out of work.

If your not part of the solution, you are part of the problem

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You would think the PLP would be loving the OBA….

difference is of course they have also seen massive infrastructure development, hotels, airports, roads, AC project. Restored the confidence of the lenders through smart business practices, seen a huge increase in Bermuda Collage graduates, implemented PATI, implementing Casinos legislation, implementing SAGE recommendations…

The OBA and PLP often say the same thing, the difference is the OBA actually does something.

Where is the PLP’s workforce development strategy? Why can’t they propose anything instead of just pointing fingers and throwing stones? Are the PLP reps getting paid to contribute to a better Bermuda, or were they just elected to throw stones?

“Introduce an Office of Economic Diversification” Wow. So there are people waiting on the sidelines with the secret to Economic Diversification yet the PLP won’t tell us who they are or where they are until they get elected? Seriously who are these people and what are their ideas? Did they just arrive in Bermuda? What are we waiting for? The PLP are really holding out on us here. Put down the stones and share the secret to a thriving Bermuda economy please. You are getting paid right now.

And how hard was it for you to not mention race? Pretty hard I imagine.

Thanks for the laugh Rolfe, you lot couldn’t make me a sandwich let alone make real changes that would see an upward curve in the economy and employment. The plp will likely go on a borrow and spend campaign with massive overruns on ‘infrastructure development’ all while telling everyone that its for the peoples benefit. You’ll likely put us into so much debt that we’d be decades getting out of… oh err you already did that, my bad, sorry mate. FAIL!

Communist.
All the same. Who you work for Rolf? And you get paid by the “-’OBA….

And what OBA policies have driven up the cost of doing business?

More hot air from the UBP/PLP. Take a back seat and enjoy the show.

Let’s start with the bad ones.

” Bermudian jobs continue to shrink under the OBA while non-Bermudian jobs continue to grow” – Really? Based on what evidence and data? Is that a permanent thing or a temporary blip due to America’s Cup. As always, he fails to cite his sources and probably jump to conclusions on bias data.

“Job losses are still mounting in international business and among white collar professionals” – this is probably true but he fails to mention that this is compliments from the PLP which scared businesses away with anti-IB attitude and unrealistic demands from IB

Now for the valid points he is making.

“OBA have exacerbated the problem by raising the cost of doing business in Bermuda, failing to diversify their economy and failing to invest in the training and development of Bermudians.” – This is absolutely true. By significantly increasing payroll taxes, the OBA has done nothing but raise even further the cost of doing business in Bermuda. Even worse than that, instead of cutting expenses to deal with mounting debt the best OBA could come back with is increase payroll taxes. This is completely absurd. The inter-related problem is OBA’s failure to diversify the economy and therefore having the ability to cut civil servant costs by finding them jobs in other diversified industry.

The problem that both OBA and PLP fail miserably to understand is that in order to diversify the economy you need to be able to attract foreign industries (and yes, workers too) to encourage them to set up shop in Bermuda. This can ONLY be done by liberalizing investment and immigration policies. Neither party has the courage to face their constituents and make them understand that the only way we are going to get a thriving economy is by allowing foreign folks to establish companies here which eventually will hire Bermudians. Furthermore, it’s one thing to attract investors, it is another story when it comes to retain them. The ONLY way we are going to retain them is by liberalizing immigration laws and allowing people who contribute significantly to Bermuda economy to become citizens. Get that into your narrow xenophobic mind. Without that, you will NEVER diversify the economy significantly.

One policy which is miserably missing from both parties is how to we build a society which recognizes and rewards contributors regardless of their skin color or national origin. How do we give the opportunity to all the foreign talent living in Bermuda to feel like an integral part of the Bermuda society and encourage them to contribute socially, culturally, and economically? Unless effective policies and directives are put in place, we will continue to live in a divided society which does nothing but negate all the wonderful things we can all achieve by working together as one people regardless of skin color or national origin.

I am looking forward to seeing tangible, realistic and effective proposals being put forward by both parties.

Sorry Rolfe, but we just don’t buy this nonsense and this is the kind of BS that unfortunately some listen to and believe.

I was up in Dockyard today for several hours working and there were all kinds of Bermudian workers up there. There were also a lot of expertise jobs that Bermudians probably couldn’t fill. The amount of work that has gone into refurbishing dockyard is huge. We are very lucky.