Bermuda: Six-Year Work Permit Limits Set

Matthew Taylor, Royal Gazette

09 March 2001

This story is reproduced by kind permission of the Royal Gazette at: http://www.accessbda.bm

Six-year limits on work permits will come into effect from April - but well-behaved companies will be able to exempt key staff from any restrictions.

Labour and Home Affairs Minister Paula Cox said the limits were needed to ensure firms had a genuine interest in recruiting and training Bermudians.

But she added that the system would be kept flexible to ensure Bermuda kept its business edge.

She said: "We are competing to attract workers with skills that are in short supply, not just in Bermuda, but across the world. It would be wrong if term limits led us to lose such people.

"Term limits will not apply to positions and persons who are proven to be key to the success of a company.

"Nor will they apply to those categories where there is a demonstrable, severe shortage, either because the scarce resources worldwide have a local impact or there are shortages locally owing to exceptionally high demand."

Companies must make a case to have a worker or boss exempted - but Ms Cox said they would only be listened to if those companies had been "good corporate citizens".

Criteria for this include: a good record in training and employing locals; producing clear and correct job advertisements; and submitting properly completed work permit applications.

Such firms can also look forward to speedier processing of work permit applications.

In January this year there were 7,300 work permit holders - the move to six-year limits does not have to be approved by Parliament, said Ms Cox.

And she said counting toward the six-year limit would only begin on April 1 - time accrued before that date would not go toward the maximum limit.

Ms Cox explained what had led to the six-year restriction.

She said: "The Government has worked hard to strike the right balance between the understandable desire of business to operate with a minimum of regulatory control and the legitimate and proper aspirations of Bermudians to participate fully in the economy of their Island home.

"The Government recognises that international business is becoming critically important to the economic well-being of our people, particularly in terms of job creation. However the Government has an obligation to regulate business in a way that derives benefits for all of Bermuda's people.

"We have heard all too often how Bermudians feel left out of the Island's prosperity, how they feel denied opportunities to train and hone their skills, how they feel that promotion opportunities are not open to them. This new policy will address these concerns."

Ms Cox said her department would be giving firms help in advance over what categories of employees might be regarded as possible exceptions from the six-year limit.

But she said she would be "very surprised" if hotel workers were regarded as key workers, despite the fact that a paper written by her for a recent conference in Oxford University had pointed out there was a worldwide shortage.

She said: "Nurses are a key area where there's a worldwide shortage. Key areas are CEOs or high level - it would be political suicide for any Minister to say you would make waiters key workers but clearly it's for employers to make a case."

Asked about restaurants who were finding it difficult to get locals to do menial tasks Ms. Cox said the Government would take a firm approach. "It's very doubtful you could make a case that there is a need for those persons to be designated key persons.

"This policy is putting people on notice that it is very important to encourage Bermudians."

Chamber of Commerce President Cris Valdez-Dapena praised the Minister for exemplary way in which she had consulted business on the changes. She said of Paula Cox: "The competitive interests she was required to balance were challenging. You can't achieve perfection but she has strived mightily.

"She has demonstrated an openness to the business community and also an awareness of the critical nature of continuity within business.

"We need to see how it works in practice to get further clarification on specific points."

Employers Council Executive Director Malcolm Dixon said: "We will have to see if it is going to cause any hardship for business and whether companies will be able to attract people here for that length of time. Obviously the Minister is trying to control, as much as she can, people staying and staying indefinitely and instead she's putting something in place where permits only last so long, but she's made provisions for key people."

Recommended