20 November, 2014

Dear sir,

I write once again to rebut Mr Commissiong’s article concerning Bermuda unemployment and in his case specifically black unemployment that appeared in your publication November 20.

Mr Commissiong’s follow-up piece to his original dated November 3 was devoid of facts, as usual, and was just another attempt to rile up emotions based on mistruths and misinformation.

He claims that the high black unemployment rate is a direct consequence of OBA policy and that the shared sacrifice is only being felt by black families while under the infallible PLP reign the opposite was true. It wasn’t, and here are the facts, derived from the Bermuda labour surveys which he cited in his original piece, to prove otherwise:

• Between 2011 and 2012 the black workforce participation rate dropped from 20,129 persons to 17,229 persons which translates to a 15 per cent fall. This was under the PLP by the way, but you would have never known because Mr Commissiong and Co never wanted you to know.

• Black unemployment in 2012 was 11 per cent while the 2011 labour survey for some strange reason, I imagine political, didn’t include any unemployment stats

• Black unemployment in the 2013 survey had dropped to nine per cent despite the fact that the black workforce had increased to 19,165 persons or an 11 per cent increase within the first nine months of the OBA reign

• The white workforce fell 12 per cent to 11,699 persons between 2012 and 2013.

So, in summary, with the rise of OBA to power the black workforce has increased from a low experienced under the PLP and their protectionist and anti-Bermudian worker policies while at the same time the white workforce has decreased 1,538 persons or 12 per cent. Black unemployment registered a fall for the first time in several years despite the fact that size of the black workforce increased 11 per cent over the same time period.

These facts alone show how terrible the black workforce fared under the inane policies of the PLP and how this trend was reversed under the first nine months of the OBA, which just happened to coincide with the elimination of the term limit policies which pushed so many jobs off of our shores. Once you read those stats it is no wonder that Mr Commissiong resorted to conjecture and storytelling for his article as the facts would definitely have an anti-PLP bias.

Within the same November 20 article Mr Commissiong states that the PLP modernised the workforce by improving education. What the author failed to note is that in the years 2011 and 2012 our public schoolchildren were only able to achieve a 28 per cent pass rate for GCSEs (i.e. grades between A to C) which was worse than the worst school in the UK who scored a low of 35 per cent.

And he failed to omit the fact that the female students are recording graduation rates almost double that of their male counterparts.

If that is Mr Commissiong’s and the PLP’s idea of improvement then we are all in trouble. But then again in his piece he just stated flowery words about the PLP’s achievements without actually providing any examples to highlight his claims. Typical and to be expected.

In Mr Commissiong’s first article printed on November 3 he stated that part two would touch on the PLP’s solutions and “commitment to real reform and solutions which are at once progressive and sustainable”.

Guessing he forgot to include those in his November 20 follow-up piece, but again that is typical and to be expected. For when you have no ideas, blaming and distorting the truth is all you have left.

JUST THE FACTS