BVI employment on the rise, Premier says
Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley has reported a steady increase in employment across the British Virgin Islands (BVI) since 2022, following the easing of post-pandemic impacts.
“This positive trend continued into 2023, with a 1.9 percent increase in employment compared to 2022,” Wheatley stated during his budget address for the 2025 fiscal year last week.
In 2023, a total of 21,543 persons were employed in the territory, and Wheatley anticipates further increases in employment by the end of 2024 and into 2025.
“Based on the expected growth of the economy in 2024, driven by a boost in tourism and construction activities, we expect employment to grow by one to two percent over 2023,” the Premier noted.
He added that this trend is expected to continue in 2025, with the potential for even higher growth, given the government’s focus on delivering large infrastructure projects and facilitating private sector tourism and development initiatives.
This comes after concerns in previous years that unemployment was on the rise in the territory. In response, the government launched the RATED (Registration, Apprenticeship, Training, Employment, and Development) programme in late 2022, designed to provide training and employment opportunities for Belongers who are either unemployed or underemployed.
As of November 2023, a total of 418 persons have registered for the RATED programme. Of those, 337 registered for landscaping and fieldwork, while 79 enrolled in administration roles. However, 12 applicants did not meet the programme’s qualifications.
Since its launch, 76 individuals have secured employment through the programme, with 127 actively engaged as of September 2024.
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Always selecting his facts from a bottle. Just because Peter Island opened doesn’t mean $hit. The ignorance that flows from this man’s mouth as if he believes it’s gospel is disingenuous, misleading, and an outright disgrace.
Put it all in full context and you (Mr. Premier) have f’ed this economy, this Country, and it’s people like no other Premier and/or Governmnent before you.
Honestly make me sick as frick! This is our elected government at work for us. UK won’t do $hit, other than laugh their collective asse$ off for what we the people have done to ourselves.
You could not have said this any better!! Please can we get a whole new generation of ministers?
What’s worse is that no one can run for office unless both parents are born the in BVi .. talk about breeding incest !!
I believe if you are born here or have become a belonger and paid your dues to this country then one should be allowed to run for office.
WHY AYO DONT TAKE THE MIC FROM THIS DUDE?
Hire more men to cut bush and we all will agree
Why isnt bush cutting automated like most first world countries? Does it really have that much of a economic multiplier impact. Perhaps you can use less manpower for bush cutting and move that labour over to sanitation/garbage.
This article is to vague to validate any assertions by the Premier.
I worked for the RATED Programme and was told that once I made $10.000 that I would have to wait until the next year to work again that’s just 3 months as a supervisor out of a year so what am I supposed to do for the remaining 8 months of the year they need to change that s**t or just tax the money that ain’t making any sense at all
The is about $833 per week to cut bush. wow
current trendings will begin to. make the ancestors of the 1949 March crawl out of the graves and their spirits roam the streets at nights.
Premier you are such a joke and a fr**d. First of all you have a rated program with a cap of $10,000 for each participant before they can ever see money again also a number of those persons who have been a part of this program says that government takes to long to pay them. Also we have a tourist season that opens in November and close in April the next year. So what are these workers supposed to do for the next six months. Also the most people being employed are expatriates because government don’t want to get off their lazy butt to bring investors into the country but prefer to live off the work permit fees because we have no ideas nor desire to move the country forward. Also the government tries its utmost best to stop local BVIslanders from getting work in their own country.
You all don’t see this dude setting up himself for premiership for as long as he wants. The expatriates feel like they owe him something when they get their Belongership or Naturalisation when it fact they earned the status. Expats you owe no government anything when you earned any of these status.
What are the salaries of these added jobs? Enough to live in the BVIs? Or are we talking $ 100/day? Are they steady jobs, or subject to seasonality?
I like that they state “says”
Wow. 21,543 jobs in 2023 and only 7,000 out of that are actual BVIslanders. Who are we building this country for? What is going to be the legacy of this Government? At the end of the day work permit fees should not be a big draw for any country. By the looks of things locals have been ousted and it is fine with this Government.
It would be interesting to know how many work permits and work permit exemptions we have had this year. Oh, how we miss he days when the old style politicians ran things. The only thing they needed was the hundreds of millions being wasted now. We would have a real country, not this poppy show bull shiggidy we are living in. Wonder if our Premier and other members of Government care about their children and grand children’s future. Never mind caring about mines. We can only pray for change for the Bible says you can’t talk sense to fools.