Tourism Minister Dionsio D’Aguilar  says, “ since the  coming to office of the Free National Movement government in May 2017,   some 10,000  jobs  have been created.

 He said the Tourism sector  saw an upswing in employment between May and November 2018.

Referring to the Labour report released on Monday,  Mr. D’Aguilar said, “ most of those  gains came from the private sector. The FNM’ strategy is to create private sector jobs.

“I was also encouraged by the number of entrepreneurs that started their own businesses that factored into the report;  so we are correcting this economy. 

“The failed  strategies of trying to create employment through giving government jobs,  which then leads  to greater government debt and further downgrade has been halted and we are now doing it the right way of allowing the private sector to grow and to flourish,” said the tourism minister.

The opposition contends that the latest labour statistics  tell a sad tale, but despite the .7 per cent uptick in unemployment, Labour Minister Dion Foulkes  seems  pleased with the way things are headed.

He said, “in Abaco, there was a 3 per cent decrease in the unemployment rate, something that is very significant. 

“In Grand Bahama, this is the second consecutive survey that has shown a decrease in the unemployment rate  in Grand Bahamas;  so we’re very pleased about that. 

“One of the things we are focusing on as a government is to increase employment for young people and this survey, although it was only one percentage point shows an uptick of employment for young people between the ages of 15 and 25 that was revealed in the survey;  so we are extremely pleased about that,” Mr. Foulkes said. 

As for discouraged workers, the past six months showed that this group dropped by 6.7 per cent overall. 

A closer look at the numbers coming out of  New Providence and Grand Bahama shows that number fell by 9.1 per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively.

“This is an area that is not well understood by a lot of people. The ILO describes a discouraged worker as a person who is not looking for a job,  because they believe there is no jobs out there. 

“That is what a discouraged worker is, a discouraged worker is not formulated and is not included in the unemployment statistics,” he said.  

The next labour force survey is due in May.