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Young people suffer $10K earnings loss — OBA

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One Bermuda Alliance candidate Alexis Swan held a press conference on youth unemployment at OBA headquarters.(Photo by Akil Simmons)

Young people earn nearly $10,000 less than they did just two years ago, according to the One Bermuda Alliance.OBA candidate Alexis Swan gave the statistics at a press conference this morning at the party’s Reid Street headquarters, flanked by leader Craig Cannonier, OBA finance spokesman Bob Richards and two of the party’s younger candidates, Nandi Davis and Andrew Simons.She said her peers are “angry, they are frustrated; many are seeing a future they don’t like and many are losing hope”.She also said more than 1,200 young Bermudians have dropped “off the rolls” since 2009, and that the youth unemployment figure was of four in ten.Expanding on her statement that youth earning power has dropped nearly $10,000 in two years, she said that translated from an average income of $34,500 to $25,300. “Young Bermudians are experiencing the highest rate of underemployment, meaning they are earning less or cannot find enough work to keep them busy full-time.”Ms Swan, who is running in constituency 24, said: “The bottom is literally dropping out from under my generation. And the Government, which has so much potential to help, has failed them.”This afternoon the PLP issued this statement in response to the OBA claims.It said: "The OBA fails to mention real results that the PLP has delivered for our young people. Over the last several months, we've stood strong for our young people by providing job training for hundreds of our people. "We are the party that delivered the DryWall programme which trained and placed dozens of Bermudians in jobs. We are the party that delivered training for hundreds of Nail Technicians, the Waiters and Servers, Landscapers programme, IT professionals and accountants. We more than doubled the college and graduate level scholarships for our young people."We've provided Bermudians with a ten point plan for economic growth and recovery. This plan includes Job Corps Bermuda. Job Corps Bermuda is a programme that will start early next year and target those 18-24 year olds who need job training and placement services. We are introducing the One Stop Career Centre which will help our young people with job training and placement services."The OBA can talk the talk, but, this commitment to job training shows that we have both a record of training our people as well as a vision for economic growth and recovery."