Survey.

The Survey, which was amended by the former Government a few years ago to include details of the race of jobholders, is one of the few documents which gives a snapshot of employment changes in the community.

As such it is an important document which establishes the real state of employment and the health of the economy.

The first piece of bad news is that the report, which is admittedly time-consuming to produce, is out of date when it hits the desks of policymakers. Conducted in August, 1997, compilation of the survey was completed in November, 1998 and released to the public at the end of December.

There is some good news in the survey. Jobs grew some two percent between 1996 and 1997, with employment growing particularly strongly in international companies and construction. Following a long trend, there were employment declines in hotels -- one of the Island's largest employers -- and in the wholesale business.

Within occupation groups, the major gains in job opportunities came in professional and management jobs, while other areas showed only marginal decreases or small declines. This is good news for the upwardly mobile, but bad for those who are working in service, clerical or sales positions.

One of the most valuable functions of the survey is to show the distribution of jobs by the race and sex of the holders.

It should go without saying that it is to the benefit of the community that people in management and professional positions should reflect the racial and gender diversity of the community. Traditionally in Bermuda, the bulk of these jobs have been held by white males, leading to concerns over "glass ceilings'' which prevent others from entering these positions, assuming they are able and qualified to fill the posts.

Here, there is good and bad news. Whites are three times as likely as blacks to hold management and administrative positions and twice as likely to hold professional and technical jobs.

Within the professional sector, there are signs that blacks are making headway as they took up half the new positions, whereas they only hold 42 percent of the jobs overall.

In the administrative and managerial sector, the news is less good, although the number of blacks holding jobs in the sector increased by 6.1 percent, the proportion of jobs held by blacks actually declined -- from 30.5 percent to 30.3 percent as whites took 64 percent of the new jobs.

This survey goes some way in explaining why the Progressive Labour Party won the November, 1998 General Election. The perception that black Bermudians are not getting the same opportunities as whites, both non-Bermudian and Bermudian, helped fuel the PLP's election drive -- these statistics show there was some truth in the anecdotal evidence.

Now that the PLP is in Government, these figures should emphasise the need for Bermudians, both black and white, to train and re-train in order to take advantage of the opportunities that clearly exist. And the Government also needs to ensure that where Bermudians are qualified, they are given a fair shot at the jobs which are available.