BermudaData.org

Tag: travel

  • 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.