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  • Labour Market Update: 2024 Results

    We have added the 2024 Labour Market Statistics, and updated the commentary accordingly. This has not changed the trends, as can be seen in the data. The breakdown of employees by status, occupation and gender over time yields several interesting trends and changes:

    • The economy lost significant jobs during the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020, comparing the 2024 market to the last year before this (2019) is instructive
    • Since 2019, there are almost 1,500 fewer positions filled by Bermudians, a 6% fall, with a greater fall among women
    • Both PRC (-8%) and Spouses of Bermudians (-9%) also fell
    • The overall reduction is just under 3%, or roughly 1,000 employees. The growth has exclusively come from Non-Bermudians, making up some 783 positions – a rise of 10% since 2019

    As per the analysis on the Workforce Over Time, the overall workforce has been recovering since a substantial drop in 2020. The status breakdown helps to see the overall trends, with only ‘Other non-Bermudian’ seeing strong growth.

    All of the ‘local’ statuses – Bermudians, Spouses of Bermudians and PRC holders – have seen declines in the past 5 years.

    In the absence of census data – which we hope will be conducted in 2026 – this has worrying implications for the greater population on the island. While it likely a mix, this implies fewer residents on the island – a larger number of non-Bermudians and likely significantly more unemployed Bermudians.

  • Consumer Price Index: it’s pricey out there

    The government provides detailed changes to prices over time, broken down into several categories. We can use this to show how a good or service has changed cost over time.

    • Overall inflation on the island is up 60% since 2005, i.e., something that was $100 in 2005 is now $160
    • There is significant variance across different types of goods and services, with healthcare being by far the largest increase, followed by food
    • Interestingly, rent is actually the lowest of all reported categories
    • Compared to select other countries, Bermuda is broadly in line with Canada, but below Cayman, the US and the UK

    The dark line shows the overall Consumer Price Index (CPI) over time. This is a weighted ‘basket’ of the other categories listed out above. Most notable is the extremity of the rising costs of health and personal care, which explains why it is so high on numerous administrations’ agendas. A $100 treatment in 2005 is now $275 – an incredible rise in just 20 years. Food, tobacco and liquor have also increased significantly, roughly double what they were in 2005.

    While it may not feel as such, the statistics say that rent and household goods and services actually haven’t increased nearly as much, both under a third more expensive than 20 years ago.

    General worldwide price increases had followed each other up until 2020 or so, when the UK and the US both saw significantly higher rises than ourselves, Cayman and Canada, resulting in those 2 pulling away in terms of cost increases.

    Despite sourcing most goods and services from the included economies, Bermuda has demonstrated lower CPI, particularly over the past 5 years. in a future analysis we will look at productivity over that time, and how the price rises correlate with output.

    Certainly the feeling that groceries are significantly more expensive recently is born out in the data, with food showing the highest increase over the last 5 years. A shopping cart that cost $100 in 2020 is now over $20 more expensive just 5 years later.


  • Labour Market Deep Dive 2: Status and Occupation

    The breakdown of employees by status, occupation and gender over time yields several interesting trends and changes:

    • Over the last 10 years, almost 1,500 Bermudian jobs have been lost, reasonably equally split between male and female
    • The majority of these falls have been in the last 5 years, with both genders dropping by more than 6%
    • Other Non-Bermudian is the only status to see growth, with the majority coming from females
    • Since 2020, there has been a notable fall in Public administration and accommodation, while the highest growing occupation is Financial and Insurance activities of IBE

    As per the analysis on the Workforce Over Time, the overall workforce has been recovering since a substantial drop in 2020. The status breakdown helps to see the overall trends, with only ‘Other non-Bermudian’ seeing strong growth.

    The Bermudian and Spouse of Bermudian categories have not seen a full recovery, and remain lower than 2019, and indeed 2014.

    Over the last 10 years (2014-2023), there has been a clear trade-off between Bermudians and Other Non-Bermudian – for both genders. Both female and male Bermudians have seen falls of over 700 positions each.

    Most of this shift has happened in the past 5 years, with more than 1,200 Bermudians leaving the workforce.

    Unfortunately the cateogrisation of occupation saw significant changes in 2020, which makes comparisons before that difficult. However, from 2020 to 2023 can provide insight, with the vast majority of the fall in employment coming from Public administration and Accommodation – which would align with the drop in Bermudians.

    Since 2020 there has been strong growth in only two areas – and the Food and Beverage Service can largely be dismissed as a recovery from the lows of Covid-19 in 2020. The largest growth has come from Financial and Insurance activities of IBE.

  • Notes on transport

    Analysing the transport statistics published by the government yields some interesting insights into both the traffic on our roads, as well as how safe they are.

    • The number of vehicles on the road has risen after a post 2008-drop, and is broadly back to 2010 levels, with a slight shift towards cars and trucks
    • Reported accidents are down significantly over time, and there has been a 30% drop in serious casualties in the last 10 years, though this has flattened in the last five
    • Despite this and the number of accidents on motorcycles falling over time, the number of fatalities remains between 10-15 most years

    There was a clear decline in the number of vehicles on the road – for both cars and bikes – through the post-recession fall of 2008. However, since then vehicle numbers have risen back up to be broadly in line with 2009 levels, with a slight shift towards more cars. In the last 10 years, there are 6.5% more vehicles on the road, with 10.7% more trucks and 7.3% more cars. Bikes have increased slightly less at 5.6%. In the latest year of data (2023) we had the most vehicles on the road since 2010.
    Unfortunately we do not have updated census data since 2016 to compare this to, but the if the overall population tracks the labour base, then we’d expect the number of vehicles per person to have increased.

    Given that the number of vehicles on the road has been broadly flat, what has happened to accidents?

    Interestingly, there is a very clear decrease in the number of reported accidents over time, with the largest drop occurring from 2003 to 2010. However, in the last 5 years the number of ‘serious’ accidents has actually increased 1.8%, though overall accidents are down almost 10%. The data suggests we’re having significantly fewer reported accidents, however the serious ones are leveled out in the past few years.

    Unfortunately, the number of fatalities (the bottom bar in the above) have remained broadly uncorrelated to the overall number of accidents. After a few years around 2011 with under 10 per year, it has generally been between 10 and 20, with the latest year (2023) having 13.

    Given the relative protection of a car versus bike accident, we may expect this to be reflected in accidents by type of vehicle:

    However it’s clear to see in the reported figures that accidents involving motorcycles (and auxiliary) are both down in both recently and in longer term. Indeed, the reported accidents are down overall by almost 40% over 10 years, and almost 20% in the last five. This suggests improving safety on the roads which is born out by some of the casualty data, but not the serious in recent years nor fatalities across the time period.

  • Historic Government Revenue and Expenditure: Part 2 – Revenue

    The data available in the Government Digest of Statistics enables us to review over 20 years of revenue and spend by the public sector.

    Unlike expenditure – which rose quickly in the mid 00’s funded by debt, revenue has had a more steady increase over time. It is up nearly 50% across 20 years, and saw significant increases from 2016 – with a dip in 2021 being the only decrease in recent times. It is up c. 30% in the last 10 years, and 6% in the last 5.

    Importantly, this is closing the deficit to a much more manageable gap – though no surplus has been seen in the entire data set.

    The majority of this increase has been funded by taxation. Both Land Tax and Payroll Tax are up more than 100% in the last 20 years – the latter is particularly notable as there are fewer employees in 2024 than in 2005: the tax per employee has risen significantly. Payroll tax was responsible for some 30% of total revenue in 2005, this was over 45% in 2024.

    The revenue driven by tourism has remained far more flat over time, with the combination of Occupancy Tax + Passenger Tax representing 5% in 2005, halving to 2.5% in 2024.

    Interestingly, Customs Duty has remained fairly flat over time, despite increases to inflation globally.

  • Historic Government Revenue and Expenditure: Part 1 – Expenditure

    The data available in the Government Digest of Statistics enables us to review over 20 years of revenue and spend by the public sector.

    The most notable movement is from 2005 through 2009, when expenditure rose nearly 50% in just 4 years. These increases took several forms, including government wages and salaries rising from c. $300m to a peak of c. $415m in 2009, as well as significant capital expenditure which also peaked in 2009 at $200m.
    Since 2010, expenditure has remained reasonably steady, though the share of spend has shifted heavily towards paying down the debt.

    Over the last 20 years, debt servicing expense has risen over 1,300%, from under $10m per year to consistently near $130m per year.

    This also results in most other areas of spend remaining fairly static. Over the last 10 years expenditure has only increased 5% – far less than inflation. And in the last 5 years only 3%. Wages in the public sector (as total expenditure) have only risen 6% in 10 years.

  • Workforce over time

    Through presenting the total view of employment over time, it is easier to spot trends and insights into what is happening in Bermuda and her industries.

    Employment was at 34,277 in 2013, before falling through 2015. This trend was curbed and employees rose through 2019, before a significant drop of 5.7%. Since then the recovery has been gradual, and remains 4.4% below 2019 as of 2023.

    Since 2013, female employees have fallen some 5.2%, while males just 3.1%. The fall since 2019 is more balanced, with both falling between 4% and 5%.

    There has been an overall fall in employment since 2013 of 4.1%, with the main growth coming through ‘white-collar’ occupations such as Professionals and Senior Managers, and falls across the ‘blue-collar’ occupations. Notably, Clerks are down 22%, Elementary Occupations are down 19% and Machine Operators & Assemblers are down 24%. This dynamic has continued throughout the time period.

    For females, the largest growth since 2013 has been in Technicians & Associate Professionals, growing 13.6% to 1,248 positions, and in Senior Officials & Managers, up some 11.3% to just over 3,000 positions. The largest fall has been in Clerks, down 1,200 jobs to 3,708. The highest occupation for females is Professionals, which has grown 7.3% since 2013.

    For males, positions have generally been more stable, with the highest growth in absolute terms being in Professionals and Senior Officials & Managers – combined adding some 120 positions. The largest decreases have been across Machine Operators & Assemblers, Elementary Occupations and Related Trade Workers. This shift speaks to the overall trends in the economy – with ‘blue collar’ jobs decreasing and ‘white collar’ jobs growing.

    Source: Bermuda Labour Market Statistics. Click for more details on data source