THE rising importance of international business and a sagging hotel industry has left non-Bermudians with more jobs, and Bermudians with fewer, a new report revealed yesterday.

The Bermuda Job Market: Employment Briefs released yesterday by the Department of Statistics showed that Bermudians occupied 230 fewer jobs in 2002 than the previous year, compared to non-Bermudians who had seen a 373-position increase.

"The hotel industry experienced the largest dip in jobs available as employment declined by five percent or 176 jobs. Service occupations accounted for nearly two-thirds of the overall decline," stated the report.

The report also showed that in the international business sector, the number of new jobs has increased by 236, twice as many as in education, health and social services work which also experienced growth.

Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU) president Derrick Burgess said there were no surprises for him in the newly public figures.

"In the hotel industry, we have fewer beds available today than we have ever had in in the 70s and 80s," he said. "We have had some major closures including the Marriott Castle Harbour Hotel, the Palmetto Bay Hotel, Belmont, and The Newstead Hotel among others. So there will be an obvious decrease in the demand for employees."

He said jobs ran in cycles. When the construction industry boomed - the report names it as one of the fastest-growing sectors of significant employment in 2002 - people moved to construction. Mr. Burgess said when the construction industry tapered off, the hotel industry was usually doing better and people moved back to it.

Mr. Burgess remained confident that Bermuda would soon see improvement in the tourism industry. "I think the cycle will return," he said. "The Newstead Hotel is supposed to put on more rooms. The Belmont is supposed to rebuild as accomodation, plus hotel. The Tuckers Point property - you will see something there.

"The Minister of Tourism, Ren?e Webb said just before the election, they will be making a decision about two companies being considered to run the Club Med property."

Mr. Burgess said once all these new initiatives come on-line employment demand will get higher.

"With what is projected - even with the condos going up - there will be a need for staff," he said. "The kind of people who would buy these condos would also employ maids and nannies and use the hotel facilities."

Mr. Burgess thought tourism would probably improve in about five years, "hopefully sooner". But he said with the rising importance of international business in Bermuda, training was key.

"With the ever-increasing numbers in the exempt company business they are going to need more people," he said. "It appears we don't have the skill sets in all the areas of the exempt company business. Therefore, you will find an increase in non-Bermudians with jobs. All those figures in the report can be expected."

He said more scholarships and training money were needed to get more Bermudians into those positions.

"The training has to be continuous," he said. "It can't stop. It is a cycle. A lot of our folks have to be retrained. This need for retraining is happening world-wide. Money has to be put aside for training whether it is the Government, employers or whoever."

And he said the Ministry of Education, local banks and exempt companies were giving out more in scholarship money than they ever had in the past.

The report revealed that a significant portion of the job growth in international business resulted from an increase of 67 administrative and managerial positions.

Andrea Mowbray, of the Bermuda Employers Council, also said the statistics came as no suprise and she seconded Mr. Burgess' call for more emphasis on training.

"We need training and retraining," she said. "You need this before someone who has traditionally been a chamber maid in a strictly service-oriented area can enter the business world. That is where the jobs are now."

She admitted that this was easier said than done.

"Sometimes, it is easier to train someone who is younger than older," she said. "Some older people don't have any experience with computers, for example."

She said Bermuda's students need to be encouraged to enter the international business industry, because that is where the jobs were at the moment.

"As tourism downward spirals and the international business goes up, the gap is getting wider," she said. "It is now time to start directing students to international business."

Deborah Middleton, chief executive officer of the Bermuda International Business Association (BIBA) said she saw only good things in the statistics.

"All this is very positive," Ms Middleton said, "particularly the fact that a significant portion of job growth in international business was from administrative and managerial postions."

She said BIBA was trying to raise awareness of the fact that you didn't need insurance qualifications to work in international business.

To do this they are holding International Business Week on September 14, and special conferences for students and adults at the end of September.

And Ms Mowbray said the international business arena does not necessarily work against the hotel industry. Ms Middleton pointed out that some of the larger hotels international businesses.

"For example, the Fairmont chain that owns the Hamilton and Southampton Princess is an international business that is publically traded," she said.

"There is a bit of a dissolve here as to what is international business. International business is not just reinsurance. We need to include the larger hotels in that as well."

And she said international business kept many smaller hotels afloat through conference business and executive stays.

"The bigger hotels with their refurbishments are hosting many large international business conferences," she said. "There is a real dovetailing between the hotel industry and international business."

The report also said that "white-collar occupations" continue to experience "robust" levels of growth. "The professional, technical and related employment group increased by 237 new jobs reaching a total of 7,415 positions," the report read. "This level equated to a 20 percent share of the overall job count in 2002 compared to 19 percent or 7,178 jobs in 2001.

"There is a direct relationship between growth in many of the skilled occupations and employment opportunities in the international business sector and those sectors, which typically provide ancillary services for it."

Such positions included increases in market analysts, actuaries, and securities analysts.

A total of 37,815 jobs were counted during the year 2002, a small increase of one percent compared to the previous year. There were an additional 218 jobs in the economy. The upward trend was largely due to improving job prospects in international business, education, health & social work and construction.