This comment was posted by an anonymous reader. I thought it was an excellent point for discussion because I face the same dilemma for my business and I know that other Caymanian business owners face it as well. Our leaders don't seem to understand this point, yet it is critical for the life blood of the Cayman Island's small business economy:
I am a small business owner. I hire both expats and Caymanians. If I could hire more Caymanians I certainly would! No work permit fees, no waiting for work permits to be approved, no relocation expenses, no roll-over. However the reality is that rarely do I get any Caymanians applying for the advertised jobs. No business owner in their right mind would hire a qualified expat over a qualified Caymanian - it makes no business sense.
So please stop accusing people like me of being biased, and please get rid of the policy that makes hiring the expats I need to run my business, even harder and more expensive than it is already.
Or I will have to shut my doors, and those Caymanians that I am lucky enough to have working for me will lose their jobs too and everybody loses.
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5 comments:
Couldn't agree with you more. To take in the whole picture, what if all the expats in the Cayman Islands took the position that if we are resented so much, we will all leave -- all 30,000+ of us. What do you think would happen then to real estate prices? Demand for rentals? Demand for goods? Ongoing success of restaurants and other businesses dependent on expats for employees and clients? You got it. If all those businesses had only Caymanians for employees and Caymanians for clients -- They would all fail. Don't press too hard, Mr. McLaughlin, or you may get what you wish for.
Let's get real about this, the issue is not about ex-pats but one group of ex-pats.
In messrs McLaughlin and Tibbetts really wanted to preserve Caymanian culture they would stop the cruise ships, shut down the radio stations and ban cable TV on the islands.
The islands' culture is not indigenous. It comes from the USA, Canada and the UK, countries who have traditionally provided the majority of skilled ex-pat workers and many of the current status holders.
The cultural invasion they are seeking to stem comes from much closer to home - Jamaica.
Rollover is part of a wider plan to stop people from other Caribbean countries settling here.
There is already clear evidence that immigration are operating a "black-on-black" racist policy of refusing suitably qualified Jamaicans work permits for job vacancies which are then filled by ex-pats from other parts of the world.
Messrs McLaughlin and Tibbetts are just plain scared to admit that the whole rollover scandal is simply a smokescreen for a much more sinister immigration policy.
In the end what these two will do is turn the ex-pat workforce in the Cayman Islands into a transient group with no respect for the island and no committment to their employers who will simply use the time here to enjoy themselves then move on.
Sorry, I am already boycotting some Caymanian businesses that can not extend me any courtesy, smile or service. I did not go looking for them but I also choose where to spend my money on a daily basis. That said I will stop spending it in an expat shop if I do not get the proper service. But now that I know I am resented .... well it works both ways.
I agree completely that the policy is fostering a transient society. Let's be honest. Even if every Caymanian across the Islands were qualified and interested in every availble job - which few actually are - there still would not be enough poeple to run this country at the current rate of business let alone grow into the the next decade.
If the Cayman Islands were a country that relied on farming or production of goods, then I think we could say that labourers for the most part would be expendable and perhaps a rollover policy would serve it's supposed purpose - to prevent foreigners from settling here and redefining the bloodline of the populous.
But we are not farmers and we are not factory workers. We are bankers, lawyers, auditors, and analysts. We are restaurant managers, retailers and servers. We are people with university degrees and thousands of hours of work experience which directly relate to our ability to perform our jobs well.
In fact, it is our level of education, experience, work ethic and commitment which have secured the Cayman Islands the fifth largest banking nation and one of the most prestigious vacation destinations in the world.
We must not forget that all of this "expendable" labour requires support industry and labour for housing, ammnities and other life services.
This is a country that heavily relies on the quantity and quality of foreign labour it generously receives from abroad. Caymanians are fooling themselves if they think there are long waiting lists of people to fill all of these positions, because there aren't.
Just ask some HR managers or employment recruiters how often they search long and hard for qualified people who are actually ready to give up their city lives to live on a dot in the Caribbean. Some, yes. But many? I don't think so.
And so I simply throw this back out for those people who might think that the rollover policy will strengthen Cayman:
How are we building a stronger Cayman by forcing our prime industries to replace their precious staff on continual basis? At some point, the pros will simply outweight the cons.
I think if Caymanians wish to preserve their culture then that is what they should do! Continue to foster cultural programs and heritage days and other events to help celebrate and preserve all of the things that make Cayman unique.
But let's not be ignorant to the realities of a changing and growing world. Immigration is how countries grow. It is inevitable. And Cayman is shooting itself in the foot if it thinks that forcing committed skilled (and unskilled) labour to leave is going to stop their children from mating outside the gene pool.
I agree with most of what has been said here. Specifically that it is the Jamaican immigrants that are being targeted moreso than any other nationality. Alden McLaughlin will go down in history as the 'Hitler' of the Caribbean with his racist attitudes and his fear of corrupting the Cayman gene pool. I wonder if this attitude is what has led to the ever prevalent in-breeding within certain districts. This has resulted in something Cayman can really boast of and call its own, the "Cayman Disease" whch is a truly unique syndrome, developed as a direct result of the over-preservation of the Caymanian gene pool.
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