Chris Furbert has hit back at comments made by Bob Richards, the Minister of Finance, that allegedly accused the Bermuda Industrial Union president of misinforming the public over the Island’s job loss statistics.

The union leader said he took opposition to comments by Mr Richards, who disputed that the Island had lost more than 1,000 jobs in the past year, as stated by the Department of Statistics.

The One Bermuda Alliance released an independent 2014 Labour Force Survey two weeks ago, having sampled 1,500 households out of a total of 28,818, which pointed to 511 job losses last year.

The discrepancy appears to be over whether those jobs were solely of Bermudian workers or included figures for non-Bermudians.

In yesterday’s rescheduled press conference to “clarify certain statements made by Minister Richards”, Mr Furbert said that the Labour Force Survey presented only a “snapshot” and that the Minister of Finance should rather pay attention to the Department of Statistics’ Facts & Figures 2014 document.

“What I find interesting is that we are comparing apples and oranges here because this is a snapshot — only a snapshot,” Mr Furbert said while waving around a copy of Facts & Figures.

“Whereas this document here is the document that the minister should be paying attention to. They look at the true employment numbers when we look at overall employment change from year to year.”

The department’s statistics recorded a steady decline in jobs since 2008, with the number of occupied jobs falling by 5,936 amounting to 1,166 losses in the past year.

Mr Furbert said that during the 2013 Tripartite Retreat for Government, Employers and Unions, Mr Richards had said that only Bermudians were included in the employment statistics.

Finding this unusual, Mr Furbert said he asked the Department of Statistics whether this was the case and he was told it was not.

“They said that is not true,” he said. “We have to look at all of the numbers. The issue for us as an organisation is we can’t have 5,900 people leave the workforce [since 2008] and say, ‘We’re going to count the Bermudians, but we’re not going to count the others’.

“The reason why this is so important is because those 5,900 employees all contribute revenue to the Bermuda Government by way of payroll tax and they [the Government] could really use that.”

Mr Furbert added: “The Minister of Finance needs to get his head out the sand and realise that these workers also need to count when it comes to the overall loss of jobs.”

The Minister of Finance did not respond to calls to clarify the situation by press time.

Meanwhile, the BIU also confirmed plans to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the Belco strike.

As reported in The Royal Gazette last week, the occasion will be marked at BIU headquarters.

On February 2, 1965, a strike for union recognition at Belco was marred by a violent clash resulting in both Police and picketers being injured. The “Night of Reflection” will include a panel discussion featuring former BIU president Ottiwell Simmons among others.