Department of Labour Executive Director, Quinton Laroda recently told ZNS News that unemployment numbers released by the Bahamas National Statistical Institute don’t reflect labour on the island of Grand Bahama.
According to the latest numbers Grand Bahama had an unemployment rate of 12.8% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to 8.8% in 2024. Laroda said, “the first quarter didn’t take into account the employment from Celebration Key. Celebration Key has more than 600 Bahamians employed and so that was not factored into the first quarter because they opened I think around June, sometime in the summer, which was after that time that the first quarter was based on.”
The Labour Executive expect the second and third quarter numbers will show improvement in the unemployment numbers. “I anticipate a much lower unemployment rate as we move to what I think is the ideal about 6%. That’s a lot of pressure on employers and the government to get there, but at one time 6% used to be considered full employment.”
Laroda pointed to the many projects underway on the island that were not factored into the first quarter numbers. He said, “we have preliminary talks with Norwegian in partnering with them for a job fair which is gonna come on board soon. And that’s going to be a massive search for employees as well. That too added on to those at Celebration Key will cause a significant drop in the unemployment rate. Also looking at what was done with the Container Port, which also occurred after the first quarter, they took on more employees and then the expansion at the Shipyard will also absorb workers as well.”
