In my previous post about the government's consultation document on "Retaining the Local Workforce", I focussed on the proposals to make it more flexible to obtain PRC for many.
I alluded to another aspect, which may be of great interest to long term residents, and which may be quite controversial in their impact. At p8 of the pdf, the following is proposed:
- Amend the work permit policy to ensure that Bermudian workers are protected from being first out during layoff and redundancy when there are work permit holders in similar positions.
- Amend the work permit policy to ensure that there is a hiring hierarchy which places Bermudians first amongst all other groups.
These proposals would be a radical departure from the status quo. Currently, employers are entitled to determine which employees to select for redundancy, which may be based on things like performance or suitability. It seems like it could go down very badly to require an employer to make work permit holders redundant first if those persons happen to include some of the most high-performing employees.