Future CURE surveys of the workforce may include the gender of staff, The Royal Gazette has learned.

The move would be welcomed by Bermuda Employers' Council (BEC), which also wants future Commission for Unity and Racial Equality (CURE) workplace surveys to include the nationality of staff.

But Government Information Services (GIS) said yesterday the law would need to be amended to collect information on whether staff are Bermudian or non-Bermudian.

BEC has been calling for gender and nationality to be added to race in the survey to give companies and Government a better idea of how Bermudians are doing in the workforce.

A GIS spokeswoman said yesterday Government is considering including gender in future CURE surveys, but this would not begin until next year.

But amendments would need to be introduced to the legislation if nationality was to be included in future surveys, said the GIS spokeswoman.

Releasing the 2001 figures on Friday, Community Affairs and Sports Minister Randy Horton, said very little had changed in the racial profile of the workforce in the past year, although there was a two percent increase in the numbers of blacks earning $75,000 or more.

He said CURE will, if necessary, begin working with employers to help them achieve equal opportunities.

BEC executive director Andrea Mowbray said yesterday that the law was clear that companies have to invite CURE to help, and that the commission cannot force any employer to change their hiring or training programmes.

"CURE are mandated that they should get the employer to agree. They can't just go in and say to an employer 'we want to help you'," said Ms Mowbray.

"If the employer doesn't want help there is nothing they can do. If CURE comes up to a company that doesn't look right, it could be a family owned business.

"It could be a supermarket where the top jobs are reserved for family. They can't tell a family owned business they can't promote their son.

"When the CURE code of conduct was introduced, we had some concerns, which have still not been addressed. The forms did not ask for gender or nationality, and they did not take into account whether a company is local or international or family-owned, which could sway the results.

"There is talk, though I haven't had it confirmed, that they are talking of putting in gender and Bermudian and non-Bermudian, and that would make a quite a difference.

"The Employers Council would look forward to having these additions to the forms because it is too vague to say black, white and others when you have no idea who is Bermudian and who is not."

Under the CURE reporting regulations, any company with ten or more employees has to fill out the survey forms giving the racial make-up of its staff.

The 2001 survey, the second of its kind, showed whites continue to hold the majority (68 percent) of executive and senior jobs, and blacks remain over-represented in non-professional jobs.

Meanwhile, the entire CURE report will have to reprinted due to an error in calculating some figures.

GIS said although a small number of copies have been given to the media and politicians, the vast majority of the 1,000 copies have not yet been distributed.

The spokeswoman said Profiles of Bermuda, which did the calculations for the survey, had admitted responsibility for the error and would pay for the reprint.

But the mistake in calculating the percentages based on income for 2001 did not affect the main findings of the report, said the spokeswoman.