workers still unemployed, a construction company chief said yesterday.

And though some major construction starts were expected in the next year, the "building orgy of the 1980s'' was gone for good, Chamber of Commerce Construction Division head Mr. Alan Burland declared.

He made the comment after Labour Minister the Hon. Irving Pearman revealed unemployment in Bermuda still numbered in the hundreds.

Mr. Pearman said the construction industry had suffered the most in the recession, which was why efforts were underway to retrain workers in other areas such as landscaping and office cleaning.

In the three months to September 30, 453 Bermudians registered as unemployed, he said.

A Government source said the number was probably even higher.

Official figures tended to under-report the number of unemployed because Bermuda did not have an unemployment insurance system, the source said, adding, "So there is no incentive to register as an unemployed person.'' The jobless rate is also being affected structural unemployment, according to the 1992 Government Economic Review.

The review stated some industries were not supporting the numbers they once did. Examples included quarrying, wholesaling, retailing, hotels and transportation.

But areas of job growth included real estate, business services, community, social and personal services.

Mr. Burland estimated six to ten percent of the thousands-strong construction workforce was still unemployed.

"A fair number are part-time -- they do a day here and a day there for a couple of weeks,'' he said. "But it's going on four years now that the industry has been depressed.'' There was no incentive to build as homeowners, facing shrinking rents, were battling to find tenants for their apartments, he said.

Draw downs by military bases here signalled even more bad news, he said. But Mr. Burland said it was "not all gloom and doom''.

He was expecting a significant pick-up in construction starts in the next few years with a number of major projects in the works, including the new Government senior school, several new office buildings, extensive hotel renovations and perhaps even some new ones, and more condominiums to meet demand for executive housing.

Mr. Pearman said the 453 figure was a big reduction from the upper-500s jobless level in the height of the recession. But it was still a far cry from the days when unemployment was between 100 and 200 people.

The construction industry was hardest hit because of the recession-brought-on end to the building boom of the 1980s.

There had been more than 10,000 foreign workers needing apartments or homes, he noted.

But many had left during the recession, with Bermudians taking their jobs.

"That meant a lot of houses and apartments left empty,'' he said, adding he did not expect the unemployment level to increase much over the winter as most major hotels were staying open.