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Labour Minister looking to create employment register

Vincent Wheatley

Labour Minister Vincent Wheatley has hinted at the creation of a national database of employed persons in order to better gauge the status of employment in the territory.

“We must create some kind of a register where persons, once they are of working age, where you register your name there and tell us whether you’re working or not,” Minister Wheatley said at a press conference recently.

“It would be like a voluntary situation but we are discussing how best to get that data because it is very, very important to know what exactly is the state of unemployment or employment in the country,” the minister said. “At this point in time, we are basically just guessing.”

The minister was at the time responding to a question about what efforts had been made to gauge unemployment statistics in the territory in order make comparisons to how things were pre-pandemic.

Minister Wheatley said it is very difficult to provide such information at this point in time because the data that government has is only based on work permits.

“We have been in discussions as to how do we capture the wider public so we can gauge how many persons were employed at any given time versus another time in terms of work permits,” he noted.

The minister said the information needs to be compiled in a ‘more formalised’ manner so that it can be known whether a person, once registered and at the age of 18 or a working age, is employed, unemployed or enrolled in college.

While current figures are unclear, in April this year, Minister Wheatley said there were more than 1,700 persons who had lost their jobs since March 2021, most of whom were work permit holders.

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23 Comments

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  1. Iva Biggin says:

    You are a joke. Labour and Immigration has gone so much worse since you were elected, and it was pretty bad before you. Shame

    Like 41
    Dislike 2
  2. imagine we cant get jobs in our own land says:

    Go to the voters list….It hardly have locals working

    Like 16
    Dislike 2
  3. Hmmmmm says:

    Myron and his team had a proper system in place and you all dismantled it as soon as you got in. Wicked set of people here pretending to care now!!!

    Like 37
    Dislike 3
    • @Hmmmmm says:

      Exactly! dismantled it to do it over to get the credit. Everyday I wish that Myron was still in the government. I don’t care what anyone say he was one of the best we ever had.

      Like 21
      Dislike 4
    • Lilly says:

      if “Myron and his team had a proper system in place” why were they voted out? Clearly it means that the majority did not like the system.

      Like 2
      Dislike 12
      • @Lilly says:

        I’m sure they love it now! They always say you know what you have but you never know what you are going to get, that’s a perfect analogy for what happened last election!

      • @Lily says:

        I don’t think your assessment is wise. Governments get voted out for different reasons but it doesn’t mean that nothing they ever did was good. The unemployment program was a good one that Myron and his team did. A lot of young people benefitted from it. That is a fact.

        Like 6
        Dislike 1
  4. um says:

    Don’t Inland Revenue and Social Security and NHI know who’s employed by virtue of taxes paid?

    Like 44
  5. Employment Status says:

    Government cookie jar?

    Like 10
  6. Lucifer says:

    and people think the government is sophisticated enough to track us via injected particles…

    Like 10
    Dislike 1
  7. Stasi says:

    I’ts called state control. Soon neighbours will be required to report the man next door to the Stasi

  8. Really says:

    Im not here to bashed anyone but Mr. Minister you need to focus on getting the labour department up to speed. There is a huge backed log and i think the staff are over worked. Before you start implementing new stuff fix the old one stuff first. To much things going on in that dept. The labour commissioner trying but these new system is going backward instead of forward. When staff under pressure the customer get all that frustration.

    Like 14
    Dislike 1
  9. crap says:

    The same register that Myron and the NDP had in place that helped many people. The VIP government break that good program to come up with a 1000 job in a 1000 days that a 1000 people didn’t get. Now they want to do a register. Election cannot come fast enough. Get these charlatans out of office!

    Like 17
  10. Elsa says:

    Mr Wheatley you are on the right track but how difficult is it to find out the information you need to start this register. Start with the voters list, then SS and end at Labour/Immigratiion.

  11. Ki says:

    Anytime he sleeps upside down ,he has some weird dreams. I hope this is the last one for 2021 Sir. You really need some good person to advise you ,coach you in policies . You made too many silly mistakes. ?

  12. YES says:

    The real question is why was the Youth Employment Services (YES) discontinued right after VIP got elected? They didn’t even let the program run and make the necessary tweaks if they felt changes were necessary. They totally shut it down and came up with gimmicks, now here they are with elections coming around talking about setting up registers and fooling people. Same as the Minister of Education, he removed the additional year without giving it time to produce results but now he is here talking about the level of instructions and whether our kids are prepared for college or even work. With the additional year the kids that could manage were able to sit pre-college or even college courses so after their 6 years they would get their Assoc. in 12-18 months. These guys do NOT care about the youth, they only pretend to care when voting time is near. The fact that people could vote for these guys over the NDP says something is really really wrong with us.

  13. Tr says:

    He is a champion in vi**imization.

    Like 10
  14. Payroll Taxes? says:

    A simple analysis of payroll taxes would tell you who is legitimately employed would it not?

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