A Minister has been deluged with applications after he appealed for Bermudians to fill more than 50 jobs -- which otherwise would have gone to foreign workers, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

More than 90 Bermudian workers have expressed an interest in 50 vacant posts after Labour and Home Affairs Minister Quinton Edness issued a last-ditch appeal last week.

And last night Mr. Edness said the response had been so good, his Ministry would repeat the exercise in the future.

Mr. Edness added: "I'm very pleased with the numbers which have come forward -- it's told us something.

"We are going to have to do more of this kind of thing in the future.'' Mr. Edness said the names would now be matched to employers, with the hope of placing many of them in jobs.

Mr. Edness appealed for Bermudians to come forward for the positions of counstruction workers, waiters, nannies, landscape gardeners and commercial cleaners.

The jobs had been advertised -- but employers asked for permission to bring in foreign workers after they got no applications from qualified Bermudians.

Mr. Edness said: "I took the view that there must be some Bermudians around and that perhaps there had been some sort of communications breakdown.

Before agreeing to the applications to bring in non-Bermudians, I made the announcement that anyone who was interested should come forward -- and it's worked.'' Of the 92 Bermudian workers who put their names forward, 32 of them already have jobs and 60 are currently unemployed.

Around 14 of them have experience in commercial cleaning and around 11 have experience in construction areas like dry-walling and steel erection.

Mr. Edness said: "The point I have to make is that we already do this with anyone who registers with the Government Employment Office.

"These people who apply and register with the office are matched with jobs every week.''