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Bermudianisation? Shakespeare and Dickens would say it is "dead as a doornail". Bermudianisation is a concept, an ideal. Under the concept, Bermudians would be the top-paid workers, top employees and top managers.

Alternatively, additionally and broadly, Bermudianisation suggests that Bermudian community and social values should, or will, always prevail.

Bermudianisation may be the social objective most Bermudians hope, expect or seek to achieve.

But business, economic and demographic realities get in the way. Four points:

* First, business exists to make profits through the exchange or delivery of goods or services. Business does not exist to meet a social objective.

* Second, within any efficient and profitable business, the individuals who are the best at their jobs will attract the highest pay, the fastest promotions and will generally feel themselves well rewarded.

* Third, businesses that seek social objectives instead of seeking financial profit usually fail.

* Fourth, economics doesn't give a damn about social justice. Governments are not businesses in the same way banks, insurance companies or construction firms are.

Governments exist to achieve social objectives.

When things work properly, good governments deliver these four social objectives of a community:

* A regime of fair law and good social order;

* Living in atmosphere of non-discrimination and equality;

* Protected from invasion by hostile foreign entities;

* A society where each individual is best educated to maximize his/her individual potential.

Because there is no profit in their delivery, the private sector cannot deliver any of these four social objectives.

Can Bermuda's Government deliver the unstated social objective of Bermudianisation?

If Bermudianisation means what I've set out, then its achievement actually does require flesh and blood Bermudians.

If a start-up business needs 15 skilled and experienced employees but if, in all of Bermuda, there are only five Bermudians who have the required skill-sets and who are available for employment, can that business 'Bermudianise'?

Minority

Or will it have to start up with a majority of non-Bermudians, thus diluting or removing any possibility of strong Bermudian influence? Say a business has 50 employees, of whom 30 are Bermudians, and grows rapidly so it needs to hire 25 more people.

If there are only five Bermudians available, does that business have to

'de-Bermudianise' by making a workforce shift that turns Bermudians into the minority group?

In light of what we know about the size of Bermuda's economy and the supply of Bermudian labour, then yes, in both cases, 'de-Bermudianising' is the only and unavoidable option.

Beginning in 1994, the growth in Bermuda's economy and the steady surge in the employment of non-Bermudians, joining with the relative as well as actual decline in the number of Bermudians filling jobs, meant the process that might best be described as 'de-Bermudianising' got seriously underway in 1994 (see sidebar).

What we now know indicates that:

* Bermuda's future economic growth depends solely on Bermuda's ability to attract, and continue to attract, new and additional non-Bermudians to work in Bermuda;

* As Bermuda's economy grows, non-Bermudians will take incrementally larger shares in all of the total array of national jobs;

* This kind of 'de-Bermudianisation' is the only way forward;

* We started down this road in 1994, 16 years ago. In 2010, we are half a generation down that road.

Despite these facts, many voices within Bermuda's community still express concerns and values that stem from an underlying and still-held belief that Bermuda has a surplus of unemployed Bermudians.

They believe this surplus is ready - or can be trained - to fill a wide variety of most or many of the new jobs being created in our still growing economy.

Also, there is the still-expressed feeling that foreign workers 'take' jobs from Bermudians.

All Bermudians need to acknowledge the 1994 change and respond positively to that change.

Stresses

If not, Bermuda can de-stabilise as part of its overall reaction to the stresses this form of de-Bermudianising has already brought, and the even greater stresses that will likely - certainly? - come.

Must business do that social and community managing? No. Business is about 'business'. Social managing is the province of Government.

Must Government change some of its approaches? Yes. Must the business community recognise a need for changes? Yes.

Must the whole national community of Bermudians accept significant change? Yes. In Bermuda's complex, closely intertwined and microcosmic political, social and economic world, Government, all the unions and the business community must work together.

This triad must achieve the national social objective of causing change while maintaining the social stability that is the key prerequisite for all business success in Bermuda, or anywhere else.

So is Bermudianization alive or dead? "It's dead as a doornail!"

If Bermuda remains a successful economy, then now and going forward, Bermudians - collectively - will, for a time, continue to be the largest demographic group.

However, Bermudians will have to learn to live, work and share in a new and diverse community that will contain a still-growing percentage of non-Bermudians who work and live somewhere on one of Bermuda's 13,000 acres.

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