There has been a lot of talk in the Cayman Islands about the Immigration Laws as they stand. If they remain the same I am not allowed to be here after next November 16th and NOT allowed to work here after next August 3rd.
There have been guesses that 80% of the expat workforce will be kicked off the island in the next year; this amounts to 12,000 to 15,000. Which coincidently is also the number of actually guestimated Indiginous Caymanians there are !
“I don’t know the numbers,” Mr Tibbetts said adding that he was hesitant to identifying absolute numbers for those to be affected by the rollover policy because some numbers may have to be subtracted from whichever number was identified.
from the Net News
I find it amazing that they have no real idea of how much of the workforce will be removed and yet they are willing to let it go ahead. It could cause economical meltdown of the tourism and financial industrys, which account for almost all of the economy on the island. Feel free to click through any of the links I have put in this article if you are interested to find out more, but it is quite frankly ridiculous and needs to be sorted out. There are 2 types of people you want on an island like this, locals who chose to remain here, and expats that chose to live here.
You can’t force locals to stay (Caymanians of any variety) so why force expats who want to remain to leave ? Business will find a natural balance of the workforce so you will never have too many people, and competition will always dignify that the right person was hired be it Caymanian or expat.
I have helped the tourism industry here for 7 years, I have helped rebuild the island after the devastating effects of Hurricane Ivan and yet I am apparently of as much importance as the cockroaches on the island. The Governement here and the Immigration rules need to get a grips of themselves, then slap themselves and then figure out a way to make this work right.
Your thoughts