To be unemployed, and hence poor, in Bermuda in 2014 must be one of the most miserable of experiences. A job is not only a source of income, critical as that is, but it is also a measure of one’s worth to society, a place to make friends, an opportunity to dream about the future, and of self-respect. To be deemed a failure in such matters is something that no one should experience.

It is a tragedy for those who are young because having a job, any job, is a means to betterment and a place to learn things such as punctuality, responsibility, and an essential method of integrating oneself into the adult community. The effects of underemployment are not just economic, they are also social and psychological.

Real work is an important part of how we define ourselves. Meaningful work benefits both us and others. Those who lack real jobs often end up depressed, addicted, criminal or aggressive.

Conversely, full employment is more than economic good news. It helps organise our life, provides structure and purpose. It is a source of self-confidence and social respect.

It promotes stronger, more stable families and healthier communities. It helps strengthen the bonds of trust between individuals and their governing institutions. Lots of jobs, in short, means a healthier and happier Bermuda.

Unemployment is a relatively new (and a highly unwelcome) experience for Bermudians. Until, say 2006, full employment was the norm since before the Second World War.

This means that few in the current labour force until recently have had any experience of unemployment. This was a major achievement of Bermuda’s financial management for a period of over 60 years until it was torpedoed by incompetent government policies.

Today the picture is very different. Jobs, opportunities and a shining future are things that only older people, like myself, have experienced.

For the first time in living memory, the future of young people is much worse than that of their parents at the same age. It is, indeed, a matter of shame for older Bermudians that as things stand at present the younger generation will, for the first time in history, probably face a future less congenial than that of their parents.

It is a case of dreams denied, hopes crushed, and opportunities gone. It is disheartening to look at the lack of employment and advancement opportunities for Bermudians.

However, after a decade of vilifying employers and expatriates, destroying investment projects, pursuing madcap tourist projects like the Diaspora Trail, savagely increasing taxes on business and employment, borrowing money with little prospect of paying it back, failing to provide for medical and retirement benefits and promises, and expanding the civil service in order to win votes the Bermuda economy has turned out just as any sensible person would have expected.

One big mess for which young and vulnerable Bermudians are now paying the price of no jobs. The current government is clearly seeking to find solutions to the issue. To their credit, a group of Bermudians apprehensive about the future, have come together in a loose organisation “The People’s Campaign” which has put together the genesis of a programme designed to overcome this scourge.

I had many reservations about this organisation but was more than pleasantly surprised when I attended a recent symposium at St Paul’s Church.

Those whom I met there were clearly anxious to seek a solution to the problem of productive jobs and poverty and related issues in Bermuda, and had in good faith put together a comprehensive series of proposals summarised in a document entitled “The People’s Manifesto”.

There is no doubt that the main organisers the Rev Nicholas Tweed, Jason Hayward, and Chris Furbert, and their colleagues, have put huge efforts and time into coming up with proposals which they believe will provide an antidote to this hitherto unknown misfortune. For this, they deserve our thanks.

I doubt if there is anyone in Bermuda who would not wish to see improvements in the job market, better housing and education for poor Bermudians, greater opportunity for young people, higher incomes for the lower paid, greater job security, and a host of other social advances.

The question that arises is simply this — to what extent will the economic and social environment be improved by the expressed recommendations put forward by the People’s Campaign in its Manifesto?

Before answering my own question, it is necessary to draw attention to three key economic facts of life (there are many others but three is enough) about the Bermuda economy in 2014.

Firstly, it is the customer that employs Bermudians and pays their wages. The company, employer, or management is incorrectly deemed to be the employer of staff.

This leads to the misleading conclusion for the public that employers create jobs and employment, and as a result they fix wages and conditions of service. To believe this is to commit the cardinal error of mistaking appearance for reality. After all, we all know (or think we know) that it is the boss that gives orders to everyone in the firm, and it is the boss that tells people what their salary increase will be.

Management has the appearance of being in complete control and calling the shots. What is seen is the actions by the boss; what is not seen is or is overlooked, is the buying decisions of customers.

To mistake the boss for the customer is a common error. That error hides the fact that it is customers that create jobs, and by extension customers determine the level of wages by virtue of what they are prepared to pay.

The customer wants the product at a price favourable to him, he wants it now, and he wants top-class service. If that is not provided he goes somewhere else.

If the customer does not spend there will be no employment; if he reduces purchases there will be diminished employment. Happy customers are the key to job security and to high wages and salaries.

Keeping customers happy, and creating more customers, is the key to a secure and prosperous future for employees. The job of management is to entice the customer to continue to buy; if management gets it wrong they have the job of telling employees that their jobs are at risk, or may not even exist.

When they do this management is then blamed for being heartless and mean-spirited. The boss simply parrots the wishes of customers.

The second point is the obvious fact that Bermuda does not produce any of the products that Bermudians wish to buy such as food, cars, foreign trips, computers and so on.

What Bermudians specialise in is servicing the wishes of foreign tourists and international businesses (almost all of which are foreign owned).

Customers (or visitors or clients) are all foreigners and virtually all of them are not concerned with local issues such as the distribution of wealth or social justice.

They are buyers and buyers only buy what they want at a price they are prepared to pay. If they do not get what they want at the right price they go somewhere else.

The third point is that in very recent years Bermuda is facing competition that is ruthless. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bermuda was a pioneer in tourism.

It had an airport (thanks to the US military), it was very close to the richest piece of real estate in the world (the east coast of the US), and it had the confidence of foreign investors such Furness Withy (who pioneered the hotel industry).

During the last 30 or 40 years almost every country in the world enjoys each of these advantages. Bermuda now competes with Mexico, Jamaica, even the Seychelles on the other side of the world.

In addition, our customers are even more price conscious than they were in the 1950s and 1960s.

For instance, television stations are replete with adverts touting online sites which will provide the cheapest hotels anywhere in the world.

Hitherto, our hotels gave the price and customer had little choice.

Now the customer gives the hotel a price he is prepared to pay, and if they hotel cannot match it, he heads off to Mexico or Jamaica because wages and operating costs are a fraction of those in Bermuda.

Similar comments can be made about international business.

Information Technology has made it possible for such high priced activities like accounting and legal advice to be performed in low cost areas such as India or Poland.

Bermuda is now largely in a commodity business with many competitors. In such a business price is the main factor affecting customer or client decisions.

We operate in a business environment totally different to what existed even a few years ago. We are price takers — not price makers.

A failure to adjust our prices downward means unemployment, and to a large extent that is the territory in which we now live.

To be continued