A day after Labour and Immigration Minister Derrick Burgess said he had seen no evidence that companies in Bermuda are outsourcing jobs because of problems created by the Island's six-year work term limit policy, a Bermudian worker within the International business sector has questioned his assessment.

The woman, who works for a global insurance company with a large presence on the Island, said she was now looking for alternative employment because her employer is preparing to outsource her entire department overseas.

"Outsourcing is an issue," she said, in reference to Mr. Burgess refutal of a warning made by David Ezekiel, chairman of the Association of Bermuda International Companies.

Mr. Ezekiel claimed that companies, including his own, are looking to outsource jobs as a result of work permit difficulties and some would likely also relocate, for economic reasons, related administrative and processing jobs normally done by Bermudians.

The woman, who asked for confidentiality, said her department is run by Bermudians and has been in existence for 30 years. She admitted she could not be sure if the reason for the planned outsourcing was specifically due to the work permit issue.

"They have been working on the process to outsource the department to another company for a few years," she said, adding that acquiantances elsewhere in the finance sector had told her of outsourcing at other firms. She named American International Group, Ace Limited and Butterfield Bank.

In a statement on Wednesday Mr. Burgess acknowledged that some companies will, on rare occasions, outsource for fiscal and operational efficiency reasons unrelated to the work permit issue.

The Royal Gazette contacted Butterfield Bank, which confirmed an element of its IT department had been outsourced to Toronto, but had not impacted on jobs in Bermuda and was done because the unit needed to be in a "quite specific technical environment" that was not available on the Island.

Similarly, insurance and reinsurance company Ace Limited said it had examples of outsourcing across its many offices to be found in 50 countries around the world, and that in some instances outsourcing was done out of Bermuda and sometimes into Bermuda, depending on economics.

Spokeswoman Amy Shillingford said Ace has 10,000 employees around the world and that decisions on where outsourcing is done was made based on economic and financial considerations, adding that between 70 and 80 percent of Ace's Bermuda staff are either Bermudian or spouses of Bermudians and therefore the work permit issue was not a major factor for the company's Bermuda operations.

The Royal Gazette was still awaiting a comment from AIG at press time.

• Are you being affected by outsourcing? Call 278-0148 or email to sneil@royalgazette.bm