Budget Speech 2011 - Government of Grenada

The report showed that of the persons employed as at July 2008,
approximately 24.4 percent were employed either in the Government
service or in one of the state owned enterprises while 57 percent were
employed in the private sector. It should be noted that self employed
persons without employees accounted for 9.2 percent of those employed
while self-employed persons with employees accounted for 2.7 percent of
those employed.
Since July 2008, Government has not laid off any of its workers. If
anything, there has been a marginal increase. Similarly, the state-owned
enterprises have not laid off any workers.
While there has been some layoffs in the private sector this has been
minimal and limited to a few businesses. Of course, some businesses have
had to make adjustments such as staff rotations or pay cuts.
It follows that any increases in the unemployment rate since July 2008 is
primarily due to new entrants into the labour force, namely school leavers.
We estimate that no more than 4,000 persons have joined the labour force
between 2008 and 2010.
It may be reasonable to assume that some persons who were self employed
in 2008 may no longer be so employed, we have seen nothing to support
a dramatic change in the status of those persons, for example, market
vendors, farmers and fishermen.
Even if we assume that not a single one of the new school leavers found a
job (which is simply not the case) then the worse that would have happened
is that the labour force would have increased from 47,581 to 51,581 and
the unemployed would have increased from 11,859 to 15,859. This would
put the unemployment rate at 30.7 percent.
The recent labour Force survey put the unemployment rate at 29 percent.
These are the hard facts, Mr. Speaker. Everything else is mythology.
Mr. Speaker, I now wish to address the specific role of Government in the
area of job preservation and creation this year.
Page 60
2011 Budget Statement