How many people live in the Cayman Islands? And how many in Bermuda, for that matter? The latest official figures -- 39,000 in Cayman and 62,000 in Bermuda -- strike anyone who knows either place as much too low. In both islands, a better answer will be learned next year when the census is taken.

As the rest of the developed world struggles with the consequences of the shift to service industries from production-based economies, Cayman and Bermuda have a head start, which both will need, given their lack of interest in reducing the cost of telecommunications.

As the electronic age gathers pace, global structural change endangers the employment of a significant percentage of the world population whose training and experience has not prepared them for what lies ahead.

As a result of its continuing growth, Cayman, like Bermuda, has experienced something of a grand return. As the onshore economies, despite their booming stock markets, trim down their workforce, structural unemployment -- those whose future is unlikely to include any kind of employment -- is growing. In Europe, unemployment rates of 10 to 20 percent are not unusual.

Bermudians and Caymanians, faced with the effects of growing international competition and the less affluent lifestyles available almost everywhere else, have been packing their bags and heading for the one place they do not need a work permit: home.

In Cayman, as in Bermuda, any citizen who can read and write can find work.

Both islands operate a work permit system. In Cayman, perhaps half of the residents are expatriates, which compares with fewer than 15 percent in Bermuda, counting wives and children. Cayman has 13,000 work permits in issue, where Bermuda, with a larger population, had fewer than 9,000 at last count.

One insurance manager described temporary immigration to Cayman as "a continuing influx'' and doubted whether the island would long be able to cope with the extraordinary demand for overseas workers.

"The culture of an older generation is being destroyed before their eyes; but a new generation is coming along, which is open to the opportunities,'' said a senior civil servant.

Cayman has a key advantage over Bermuda: space. Much of the centre of Grand Cayman is swampland, and the "sister islands'', Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, are more or less off-limits for the kind of development now bursting at the seams, but the Caymans have what Bermuda does not, which is room to grow.

The beauty of the work permit system -- and its iniquity in human rights terms -- is that when things turn sour, expatriates can simply be expelled. We use more attractive euphemisms when that happens, but ask a Turk working in Switzerland how he feels about euphemisms when he and his family are sent packing on a moment's notice after devoting half a lifetime to doing jobs the Swiss will not deign to do.

As long as Caymanians can earn the high salaries necessary to make ends meet, as long as their children can automatically have jobs whenever they need them, and as long as the economy thrives, the issue raises little steam. The Caymanians I spoke to take a more balanced view than is often the case with Bermudians at comparable income levels.

"No one likes to see the other guy get ahead, unless he makes his own way there,'' explained a taxi driver. "Sometimes, you see a local boy turned down for a job that he could do, because there's a foreigner coming down, but mostly they bring in eggheads to fill the difficult jobs.'' "Caymanians don't feel they should have to do all the dirty work,'' she said.

Lacking Bermuda's closed categories, Cayman is full of British bartenders and sales assistants -- and no one complains.

Again like Bermuda, Cayman has suffered from a monopoly in the provision of telecommunications. Prices in Cayman are even higher than Bermuda's -- much higher, believe it or not. A Scottish lawyer explained to me that, for large corporations, the cost of communication is not an issue, whereas individuals suffer by comparison. Rates are falling in the Caymans, as they are in Bermuda, but neither jurisdiction provides what would pass for reasonable service because successive governments have protected the shareholders of their monopoly service providers at the cost of their people.

That said, Cayman's prospects look brighter than Bermuda's, partly because of the space and partly because success, being more recent, is more keenly felt.

Growth is easier from a smaller base, so Cayman's growth in percentage terms will probably exceed Bermuda's for some years to come. Cayman's development laws are more relaxed than Bermuda's, so the island charm has been a casualty in a way that Bermuda has not allowed to happen.

Cayman's future, of course, like Bermuda's, is dependent on decisions made elsewhere. As long as the larger powers allow the offshore communities to grow, they will probably grow. When the great nations decide that enough is enough, however, what follows may not be pretty.

This is the last article in a series by Roger Crombie.