“We must create some kind of a register where persons, once they are of working age, where you register your name there and tell us whether you’re working or not,” Minister Wheatley said at a press conference recently.

“It would be like a voluntary situation but we are discussing how best to get that data because it is very, very important to know what exactly is the state of unemployment or employment in the country,” the minister said. “At this point in time, we are basically just guessing.”

The minister was at the time responding to a question about what efforts had been made to gauge unemployment statistics in the territory in order make comparisons to how things were pre-pandemic.

Minister Wheatley said it is very difficult to provide such information at this point in time because the data that government has is only based on work permits.

“We have been in discussions as to how do we capture the wider public so we can gauge how many persons were employed at any given time versus another time in terms of work permits,” he noted.

The minister said the information needs to be compiled in a ‘more formalised’ manner so that it can be known whether a person, once registered and at the age of 18 or a working age, is employed, unemployed or enrolled in college.

While current figures are unclear, in April this year, Minister Wheatley said there were more than 1,700 persons who had lost their jobs since March 2021, most of whom were work permit holders.