The latest unemployment data released by the Department of Statistics on Friday painted a fairly rosy picture of the state of joblessness in the country.  But is it all just a façade?
While the numbers showed that unemployment has actually decreased, they also showed that the country - and most of the world really - still struggles to get itself out of the economic storm that lashed global financial markets in 2008.

The unemployment rate now stands at 13.7 percent, according to the latest labor force survey, which was conducted between April 25 and May 1.  When the last survey was conducted in May of 2009, the country's unemployment rate stood at 14.2 percent.  This latest survey showed that unemployment dropped less than one percentage point on New Providence and by two percent on Grand Bahama - the two islands where over 90 percent of the country's workforce is employed.

However, when one delves deeper into the numbers and examines what Kelsie Dorsett, director of the Department of Statistics, had to say about the underlying factors that contributed to the drop, it becomes clear that unemployment in the country is disturbingly high in real world terms.  When the unemployment figures were announced, Dorsett said that two things contributed to the drop in numbers: The high increase in discouraged workers and the increased number of people who created employment for themselves.

Discouraged workers are people who have simply stopped looking for work.  When you stop seeking employment, you are no longer counted among the unemployed, according to the model that the Department of Statistics uses to calculate the unemployment rate.  According to the latest numbers, the labor force is comprised of 190,075 people.  Of that number, 25,955 people are unemployed.  Of course, that number does not take into account the massive amount of discouraged workers.

In May 2009, there were 8,825 discouraged workers in the country. Since then, that number has spiked by nearly 35 percent.  Now there are more than 11,900 discouraged workers in the country.  Some countries, however, do factor discouraged workers into the unemployment rate.  Let's pretend for a moment that The Bahamas is one of those countries.

Using a model that includes discouraged workers, we would see that if we added the nearly 12,000 people who want a job but simply refuse to look any longer, to the number of out of work people who still bother to try and find a job, there would be around 38,000 unemployed people in The Bahamas.  That would put the unemployment rate in the country at just under 19 percent.

It means that one in five people who are able and willing to work cannot find work.
Underemployment  In the absence of concrete data, there has been a thrust by some in government to proclaim that things are getting better for job seekers.  Looking at the data now available, it would be hard to imagine anyone making such statements.

Not only are many Bahamians flat out of work, there are many more who seldom work at all.
These people fall into the category of "informally employed" workers.  More than 4,400 people were added to this category since 2009, accounting for more than 70 percent of the people who were added to the workforce in the last two years.  The informally employed are workers who are not taxed or monitored by the government and who usually have no contracts, little or no job security, no fixed hours, no fixed location from which they operate and no employment benefits like sick or maternity leave.

While private sector employment grew by less than one percent, self-employment saw a virtual boom of 10.3 percent.  While its method of data collection is sound, the Department of Statistics has so far failed to properly characterize how little people are working.  Dorsett said that the survey, which was conducted in 2,000 households, does take into account the number of hours people are working.

But even with that data - which has not yet been collated - she admitted that it is still difficult to get a true sense of underemployment in the country.  "It's a very complex thing. We look at the hours worked and we ask the individual whether they would like to be working more hours," she explained. "But the catch there is that they also would have to be seeking more hours. So if you're out there selling phone cards in your jeans and T-shirt it might be difficult for you to also be going looking for work."

She admitted that a separate study should be done to accurately capture the underemployment picture.  But the fact remains that counting anyone who does any honest work and gets paid for it as employed, is warping the overall view.  Therefore, the phone card vendor on the streets, the person who cooks at home and delivers your lunch once a week, the woman who does your nails, the guy who cuts your hair in his garage - these people are considered employed.

Yet these people do not pay national insurance or come under any regulatory oversight.
What the Department of Statistics also fell short of conveying was that these "self-employed" people have resorted to any means of legitimate work because they cannot find a stable, permanent job.  The majority of these people are simply struggling to make ends meet, making a few dollars every day to pay rent and buy food.

Dorsett said that these people have developed "coping mechanisms" to deal with the reality of recurring expenses and of course, the instinct to survive.  What the labor force survey does not speak to is the quality of life for these self-employed people. These people are the part of the workforce who usually have no bank accounts, cannot get loans and are often living without basic utilities in very shoddy conditions.

They have no savings, no pension and no plans for the future. Their future is measured in terms of "can I feed my children (or myself for that matter) tonight?"  The future for many of these people extends no farther than the next school semester, when uniforms and supplies need to be purchased.  For some, the future is a vague concept that is often lost in the urgency of their present circumstances.

For some, desperation will set in as honest employment options dry up.  And criminal means of making a living will look increasingly appealing.  Who is not working?  By a wide margin, the construction sector has the highest level of unemployment.  The unemployment rate in that sector is 25.9 percent.

The number would probably be much higher if it were not for the New Providence Road Improvement Project, the Baha Mar development and the construction of a government complex in Grand Bahama.  The unemployment rate in the hotel and restaurant sector is 15.1 percent.  The manufacturing sector has an unemployment rate of 14 percent.  There is 13.5 percent unemployment in the mining, quarrying, electricity, gas and water sector.

There is 12.9 percent unemployment in the wholesale and retail sector.  The community, social and personal services sector has an unemployment rate of 12.4 percent.  The agriculture and fishing industry has an unemployment rate of 9.4 percent.  The financial, insurance, real estate and business services sector has an unemployment rate of nine percent.
The transportation, storage and communication sector has an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent.

Those sectors account for nearly 70 percent of occupations; 31.8 percent of the people polled did not state which industry they were seeking employment in.  The government is still the country's single biggest employer, with 17 percent of the labor force working for the state.
Employees at private companies accounted for 64 percent of the labor force. Self-employed people made up 19 percent of the country's labor force.

Women and men are almost equally unemployed. The survey showed that 13,015 women were out of work compared to 12,940 men.  Where do we go from here?  It will be difficult to predict where unemployment will be when the next labor force survey is conducted in November.

But barring another economic catastrophe, certain things should see the level of unemployment further reduced.  The government's national job readiness and training program will add 3,000 people to the workforce for at least a year.  So will certain construction projects, like the building of the critical care wing at Princess Margaret Hospital, some Family Island infrastructure projects and the continued expansion of the Baha Mar project.

The Bahamas has long-relied on big development projects to put people to work.  The Baha Mar project promises to directly and indirectly create over 8,000 jobs, which would surely cause the unemployment rate to plummet and perhaps get the country back in the range of nine percent unemployment that it enjoyed as recently as 2008.  We'll just have to wait and see in that case.

Other than big tourism projects, Bahamians have also heavily relied on the government for employment.  The Ingraham administration is scrapping for cash and through heavy borrowing has managed not to conduct massive state layoffs like some of our regional counterparts.  But it is clear that the Free National Movement is struggling to come up with creative ideas for putting Bahamians back to work.

The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) has so far articulated no clear ides on this front.  At the PLP's eastern region conclave last month, Progressive Young Liberals chairman Keenan Johnson said that if it wins the next general election, the PLP would create "10,000 publicly supported jobs for young Bahamians, both in the public and private sector."  It is unclear where Johnson came up with that number.

How these jobs would be created and in what industry was also never clarified.  As far as the Democratic National Alliance is concerned, party officials claim to have a plan to spur economic growth, but it has yet to see the light of day.  But all this talk is just that - talk.
And no amount of lip service will create the jobs Bahamians need.

That will only happen with smart, business friendly policies that see Bahamian employers paying fewer taxes, opening businesses with greater ease and getting incentives for increased hiring.  Until then, expect the "informal employment" sector to continue experiencing an unprecedented boom.

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