The Bermuda Chamber of Commerce has weighed in on Pathways to Status, stating that it supports the legislation.

However, president John Wight said “simultaneous” efforts must also be made to address the social needs of the community.

“With the Chamber’s mission being to ‘cultivate the best environment in which all businesses can prosper’, the executive board of the Chamber of Commerce supports the concept of the proposed immigration reform legislation but stresses that there must be simultaneous measures taken to address the social needs of the community to ensure its success for all sectors of Bermuda,” Mr Wight stated.

He added that the Chamber believed getting Bermuda’s economy and community “back on track should be the focus of our collective efforts”.

The legislation, which Mr Wight described as a “very critical issue for all of Bermuda”, has been introduced to provide more permanence to guest workers who have met minimum threshold limits of residency in Bermuda.

“We are very sensitive to the emotion in our community over this issue,” Mr Wight said. “There are many struggling businesses and unemployed persons who, through no fault of their own, are barely surviving and are having difficulty supporting themselves and their families. We also recognise that there are deep-rooted feelings, based on historic amendments to immigration policies that have adversely impacted certain segments of our community.”

Mr Wight said the reality is that with an ageing population and “more people drawing upon the Government’s bank account that paying into it, Bermuda must increase the numbers of people contributing to the system through increased employment and population expansion”.

More people working and living on island equates to more economic activity, he added.

“We have been very clear and consistent in our message; Chamber members, who represent all sectors of the business community, small, medium, and large, need more people in Bermuda to sell their goods and services to. Several of our members have been struggling for many years.

“The only way for these companies to measurably improve their economic circumstances is to generate more volume of sales, which can only occur if we have more people in Bermuda.”