The Throne Speech examined one of the major mysteries of the Great Recession.

It said that if the economy is recovering, and there are signs that it is, it is not producing jobs, at least not in any material way. This is understandably frustrating for the One Bermuda Alliance government, not to mention the underemployed and unemployed, and while the Throne Speech tackled a plethora of issues, the issue of jobs creation was pre-eminent, and rightly so.

For those who weren’t satisfied with what was contained in Friday’s speech, the Government also had a trump card in its pocket, which was the announcement that a Canadian quango will finance the construction of a $200 million airport terminal, bringing with it the promise of hundreds of new jobs.

Even without the airport terminal, there were a number of positive announcements in the Throne Speech which should generate employment. And it’s worth noting that growing employment develops its own momentum. A new construction job leads to food being bought, which leads to more imports which leads to more trucking jobs and so on.

So the Speech rightly emphasises the groundbreaking at Ariel Sands last week and the continued redevelopment of the Hamilton Princess and its beach club at what is apparently now South Beach, Bermuda.

Those projects will employ more than 300 people, while the Princess developments will lead to 115 new hires in the hotel industry. That raises an important point about job creation which often gets lost. Much of Bermuda’s economic boom between 2000 and 2010 was fuelled by construction as one office building after another was erected. But construction is usually a consequence of economic growth and it is important that new building and developments are built to sustain growth, not to try to create it — that way leads to white elephants as the Grand Atlantic keeps proving.

The same can be said of infrastructure development, with qualifications. Where infrastructure improvements lead to an improved operating environment, they are worth it. The cruise ship docks in Dockyard were necessary to enable Bermuda to host larger cruise ships, and the plans to widen the channels follow the same principle. It is important in these cases that the taxpayer gets value for money, but that does not change the validity of the reasoning.

Last week’s announcement of a new airport terminal is a case in point. Just how the Public Private Project (P3) will be financed is not yet completely clear, but there’s no doubt that it will generate new jobs.

What is not proven is whether the Government is right in saying that it will herald a new economic beginning for Bermuda, or that Bermuda needs a modern terminal to represent Bermuda as a brand. It is also claimed that it will be financially self-sustaining. Some of that is hyperbole. What is certain is that Bermuda’s airport is not ideal, and it may be the last of its size where international passengers have to climb up and down stairs to get on and off the plane and have to dodge rainstorms on their way to and from the terminal. Provided that the work provides value for money, it will unquestionably generate economic activity, and that’s a good thing. We won’t know if will be a bigger Grand Atlantic until after it is built.

So while the new construction jobs are welcome, it has to be remembered that it is not a driver of the economy in the way that foreign exchange earners like international business and tourism are.

While there seems to be confidence that tourism is improving, as demonstrated by the new hotel developments (including Morgan’s Point if the America’s Cup comes through), the OBA rightly is focused on improving international business. While diversification is right and necessary, the Government is right to say that improving life for Bermudians now, and not at some point in the future, depends on what we have to offer right now. And that’s mostly international business, although the expansion of the banking sector is worth watching.

To that end, the planned changes to immigration policy are necessary. It may seem counter-intuitive to think that liberalising immigration policies will lead to higher Bermudian employment, but that’s the case, because if new businesses come to Bermuda, they will generate Bermudian jobs. Building a policy on the belief that the jobs pool is static and the way to raise Bermudian employment is by forcing employers to hire Bermudians has been tried. We see the evidence of its failure in every empty Hamilton office.

Slowly, new businesses are coming. We may never see companies grow in the international sector like Ace and XL did because the world has changed. But we may well see many smaller companies form and provide jobs if we get the formula right and then market it well.

Increasing employment is not simply a question of building projects and doing great marketing. Making the environment more friendly to employers, new and old, is also necessary. To that end, if reforming trade union legislation and the Employment Act as a logical follow-on could improve employment.

Like the changes to immigration policy, it may seem a contradiction to suggest that reducing some of the protections in labour and employment laws will increase employment. But when it is impossible to fire, employers will not hire. By liberalising workplace laws, more people will actually get jobs. And there’s no suggestion here that employees should have no protection. But it’s worth seeing where some protections and benefits are counter-productive.

The same is true of healthcare, which is why the effort to reduce the cost of healthcare and therefore health insurance is welcome. Simply put, the ever increasing cost of health insurance is a disincentive to hiring. That’s not because employers don’t want to hire or don’t want to offer benefits, but because the cost of benefits like health care have become prohibitive.

Right now, in year five of recession, recognising that the way we have done things for decades is no longer working should be an accepted fact, not a matter for debate. How we change things may be debatable. But not the need for change — that is urgent and this Throne Speech seems to get that.