The Island’s economy is now top of voter concerns, a survey shows, with three quarters of residents also saying they are cutting back on their Christmas spending for this year.The poll, conducted by Mindmaps on behalf of The Royal Gazette, shows more than half of respondents (53 percent) identifying the economy and joblessness as the biggest issues facing Bermuda today.More than half of those polled (55 percent) say they are not confident with the direction Bermuda’s economy is headed, while a quarter of voters overall describe themselves as “not at all confident”.Four hundred Bermuda residents, aged 18 and above and registered to vote, were interviewed in the Dec 2 to 10 phone survey.Asked if they were trimming their holiday budgets, 74 percent of residents answered yes.And 11 percent of those polled said they had lost a job in the last 12 months. Of those who put out of work, only eight percent had managed to find a new one.A Progressive Labour Party spokesman told The Royal Gazette: “There is no real surprise in this set of poll results, as the economy has been of the utmost concern for all of us through this recession.“We remain optimistic that as we enter 2012, our economic policies and job creating legislation will ease some of the burden on the working class, and that we will see some economic improvement. We remain supportive of our retail sector, as evidenced by the measures passed in the most recent sitting of Parliament. In addition, we remain supportive of business development in Bermuda, as shown by our legislation providing incentives for job-makers. We will be there, as always, to assist our people where needed.”Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards charged that local consumers were being forced to make cutbacks, responding to local rather than world trends.“The deteriorating economy is clearly issue number one. And so far there’s no real plan from Government address it,” Mr Richards said.“As we sit here, there is no global recession. To have a recession, things need to be going backwards. In the US, jobs are slowly being created. Canada isn’t going backwards. The situation is different in Europe, but most of Bermuda’s business is being done on this side of the pond, and we have got no excuse.”Charging that “most of our problems are self-made”, the One Bermuda Alliance MP said surveys by global strategy groups showed there had been “no recession” in Bermuda’s insurance and reinsurance sector.“Look at the studies the Albright Stonebridge group has been doing for Business Bermuda over the last three years. It tracks the amount of business we’ve been doing and its impact on the US. It shows how when the market crashed in 2008 and the recession hit, insurance flattened out. But it started growing again. In 2009 and 2010, our business with the US grew by 25 percent. It’s not as if the business we’re in is itself in recession.“Insurance and reinsurance is doing fine, but the jobs have been shifting out of Bermuda to places like the US, Ireland, Switzerland, Nova Scotia it’s the movement of those jobs away, by an industry that’s still growing, that’s caused this recession in Bermuda. And why are those jobs being moved away? That’s when we get down to international business not being welcome, with term limits and the red tape.”Mr Richards acknowledged that recent moves, such as Government’s decision to waive Bermuda entry visas for business travellers to the Island on the proviso that they hold a multi-entry visa for the US, UK or Canada were a step in the right direction.“That’s one of many things we need to do to make international business workers feel like what they are which is valued customers,” he said. “We’ve been accustomed to treating these people in a way that’s not appropriate, for a long, long time.”A closer look at figures shows hospitality, banking and construction as the worst-hit areas for jobs loss.Mindmaps demographics indicate that 14 percent of black voters said they had lost a job in the past 12 months, versus seven percent for whites.“I think that reflects the fact that a lot of black workers are employed in construction, which is an area that’s been hit hardest,” Mr Richards said.For those who had found new employment, retail was the leading industry for new jobs.One business manager, requesting not to be named, said that this year’s interviewers for retail positions were much more highly-qualified in non-retail positions than those seen in previous years.For Paula Clarke, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce’s retail division, the cautious spending shown by the Island’s Christmas consumers could be attributed in part to overseas trends.“Customer sentiment, from what I see, is cautious this year,” she said.“Holiday sales activity has followed pretty much the US sales trend this year, having a strong end to November sales because of Black Friday pre-Christmas shopping events, and a relatively slow first two weeks in December compared to other years,” she said.“This is because when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, as it does this year, the first two weeks in December are slow compared to a year when Christmas falls on a Tuesday or Wednesday, for instance.”She added: “This weekend saw the first strong weekend of concentrated holiday shopping, which is not surprising when you compare it to the 2005 trend which was the last time Christmas fell on a Sunday.”Customers, she said, are “looking for savings and value for money, and they are finding it here”.Certain poll results showed significant variation along lines of age and race.Asked for the biggest issue confronting Bermuda, voters aged 35 to 44 were the most concerned (58 percent) about economy and unemployment.Their numbers were sharply divided by race: 63 percent of whites and 48 percent of blacks.Meanwhile, four percent of black voters said they were concerned about housing against a negligible count for white voters.In total, crime came second overall on voters’ concerns (19 percent), followed by education (eight percent).Black voters showed themselves to be significantly more concerned about crime: 22 percent said it came top versus 14 percent for whites.Eight percent of black voters told Mindmaps that education was Bermuda’s biggest issue, against six percent of whites.Another poll topic on the economy (confidence in the direction of Bermuda’s economy) showed wider racial disparities. All in all, 55 percent of respondents said they were not confident.Out of whites, however, 69 percent said they were not confident; for black respondents, the figure was 47 percent.Mindmaps gives its margin of error for the study as plus or minus 4.9 percent.