'We need to ditch anti-expat sentiment'

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7: Bermuda needs to end its historical kneejerk reaction to workers from overseas, accounting firm boss Gil Tucker said last night.

Mr Tucker told an audience of around 300 people at a debate on the economy: “The expatriates we have today do not bear any resemblance to the emotional baggage we carry from the past.”

Mr Tucker said that historically, white workers, mostly from the UK and Canada, were brought to Bermuda to do jobs that black people were excluded from — and enjoyed privileges denied to Bermuda-born black people.

But he added: “The expatriates of today are different and we have to keep that in our minds. When the number of these people goes down in the workplace, we find homes aren’t renting at the rate they were and people need these rents to support their mortgages – residents need these expatriates.”

Mr Tucker, a senior executive at accountants Ernst & Young, said: “The workplace is very different from what it was — we employ just under 200 people and have 24 nationalities represented.”

He added that employees came from Kenya, the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Australia and New Zealand to work in Bermuda.

Mr Tucker said: “Today, we have to convince people to come here because other jurisdictions are competing for the same people.

“We not only have to find guest workers, we have to find the best guest workers we can find because they are helping our economy.”

Mr Tucker added that there were around 27,000 Bermudians of working age as well as a “static or falling” birthrate and an economy which needed around 40,000 jobs to sustain the island’s prosperous way of life.

He said: “Looking down the road, we will never be able to support 40,000 jobs. We need team members to support our economy and these team members are our guest workers.”

Myth

Mr Tucker added: “The second kind of myth is that if we send expatriates home, it removes competition from these expatriates.

“It doesn’t work that way – when we send them home, the jobs they do tend to go with them.”

He added that he backed the Government’s introduction of ten-year work permits for key workers.

Mr Tucker said: “Diversity, believe it or not, is what is going to get us where we need to be.”

The panel for The Great Debate: You and the Economy also included BIU president Chris Furbert, John Harvey of the Bermuda Hotel Association and Terry Pimental, president of Arch Bermuda.

Senator Kim Wilson, the Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry, introduced the panellists and said: “The simple truth of the matter is that now more than ever we are more reliant on each other if we are to survive. The basic truth is that we need international business because it contributes to our economy in a significant way.

“Simply put, we’re all interconnected and we’re all dependent on each other — Bermudian, guest worker, blue collar worker, white collar worker, black, white, male, female, each and every resident, young and old.”