With 226 formerly unemployed Bermudians being hired in the second quarter of the year, Government is claiming a policy success story.The policy which would give employers a two-year payroll tax holiday for new Bermudian hires became effective on April 1.Government specified that the new employees would have to have been unemployed for three months prior to their hiring for the employer to claim exemption.Finance Minister Bob Richards released some data on the 226 employees but — for reasons of confidentiality — would not reveal the identity of the employers.Mr Richards is certain that the new employment is a result of employers taking advantage of the policy.“The only thing I would say is the statistics show that we have 226 people employed than we would have had otherwise,” Mr Richards said. “We put the incentives in there and these people got hired.”In all, 105 companies from a wide range of industries are benefiting from the tax holiday.Topping the list of new hires of unemployed Bermudians was the hospitality industry.Sixteen employers in the industry class “hotels, restaurants, nightclubs and bars” took on 75 locals between the beginning of April and the end of June this year — the start of the tourist season when the industry typically ramps up its staffing.But the hotel, restaurant and retail sectors were already exempt from payroll tax under policies introduced by the previous Progressive Labour Party administration and extended in this year’s Budget.In the industry class “construction and installation”, 18 companies took on 44 people.And seven retailers have taken 16 Bermudians off the unemployment rolls, according to the figures provided by the Tax Commissioner’s office.“The Chamber have no way of verifying the numbers, however I suggest that there are a few reasons for the numbers of new Bermudian hires being higher in the construction and hospitality sectors,” said Chamber of Commerce President Ronnie Viera.“Clearly those that are unemployed are willing to accept whatever job they can to earn an income so where those industries would not have previously been appealing, they are now.“Also, for an employer, hiring a Bermudian is much cheaper and since there is now a greater pool of potential employees, they are hiring more Bermudians. Perhaps it also indicates that the Department of Immigration is doing more to ensure that Bermudians are being hired where it is possible.”Government said through a spokesperson that the law prevents officials from releasing the identity of the employers. But the Taxes Management Act 1976 does allow the Minister to authorise the disclosure of such information.While Mr Richards is confident that Government policies are working to alleviate unemployment, statistician Cordell Riley has predicted through statistical modelling that job losses will come in around 2,400 for 2013.The Finance Minister said Mr Riley’s prediction has no credibility in his view.“There’s no analysis. It’s just looking at a chart and extrapolating a chart that’s going down.”He added: “Statisticians don’t run Governments, economists do.”But asked what the employment figures will look like in a year, he said he was unsure, as Government does not do a good job at collecting such data.Mr Viera said he would not comment on Mr Riley’s predictions but noted that renovation projects such as Fairmont Hamilton and Pink Beach due to start in a few months should provide additional jobs in the construction sector.But the Chamber of Commerce President added that Government’s latest economic data confirmed his organisation’s assessment that the recovery will not happen until 2014 at the earliest.“Basically until we see some levelling of the respective indicators, we will not be able to predict exactly when a recovery will happen.”The Bermuda Employers Council said it also had not expected much improvement in the economy this year, and that there could be a decline of about 700 jobs by the end of this year.But BEC expects an “improved” 2014 “providing interest rates do not jump dampening positive change”, said its President Keith Jensen.