Government officials traveled to Grand Bahama on Tuesday for meetings with companies and stakeholders as part of their assessment of current and future labour needs for the island.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, the Hon. Fred Mitchell told ZNS News the Grand Bahama Shipyard expects to need as many as 1,600 workers by February 2027. He said, “the economy of The Bahamas is quite dynamic. There’s a very careful balancing act between importing labour and also protecting the benefits for workers here. One of the issues, of course, is training. And so we spent several minutes today talking to the trainers, their certifications, their ability to train people so that they can feed into the industrial sector.”
Welding was one of the specialized disciplines discussed. According to Mitchell residents have complained about being at home for a period of time without employment and noticing foreigners with continuous work. He said the government is trying to ascertain the origin of the issue and whether it is a problem that needs to be fixed.
Mitchell believes part of the answer is training and ensuring that high school students are steered toward careers with high demand. He said, “we need to get these young men and women, when they reach the tenth grade, and try and point them in the right direction because one of the experiences all employees have is kids come out of school and they have no idea, no clue, what’s available, what to do, just lost. And to not get people drowning in academics because hands on work may be their thing.”
The demand for labour on Grand Bahama is expected to increase. Mitchell said if that happens services will have to improve as well as the availability of housing. He said that government is trying to anticipate the needs in a statistical sense and be ready for them.
