Do you resent expatriates?

Almost 50 per cent of islanders believe tension between locals and guest workers has increased during the recession.

A fear of ‘foreigners taking our jobs’ and concern over Bermudians being made redundant while permit holders keep their positions is believed to be fuelling the discontent.

Government policies to protect Bermudian jobs — including a permit ban in certain industries — may have added to the atmosphere of tension.

Kim Wilson, minister in charge of immigration, said it was a delicate balancing act to ensure Bermudian jobs were protected in the midst of a recession. She said guest workers would always be a welcome part of the workforce.

But she added that ensuring Bermudians stayed in work was her number one priority.

“The ministry’s key focus, as it would be in any jurisdiction, is to ensure that its local population is fully participating in the workforce. Hence, ideally our aim is to have all Bermudians adequately employed.”

Martin Law, of the Bermuda Employers Council, believes the talk of increased tension may be more perception than reality.

He said: “There is a recognition that guest workers play a vital part in Bermuda’s economy. There is an understanding that without guest workers the economy would be in a worse state. It is a message we have been putting out for a while and I think it is getting across.

“We are in a recession, jobs are hard to come by, things can get a little tense.

“At the end of the day businesses have got to survive and I think there is a recognition that they need to have great people to make them work. It is important that both sides of the workforce understand that they are all dependent on each other.”

Ms Wilson said there would always be a place for guest workers in the economy.

“We appreciate that guest workers will always be a part of our workforce and we value all of our workers, no matter their cultural background.

“Each individual makes a vital contribution to our economy and guest workers will continue to be welcomed in Bermuda. However we are working to better manage the process of issuing work permits and to achieve that delicate balance of training and empowering Bermudians to take their rightful place in the workforce.”

Cordell Riley, a statistician and analyst who runs Profiles Bermuda, said tension between locals and foreigners was inevitable in hard times.

“If you walk into a restaurant and you are being served by someone who is from Sri Lanka and the short-order cook is from the Philippines, it’s natural to wonder why there are people here on contracts when Bermudians are looking for work.”

He said the tension was economic rather than racial or xenophobic — at least at the lower level.

But Mr Riley, also a spokesman for Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda, believes increased tension between blacks and whites could also factor into the statistics.

He believes the white community is much better equipped to ‘ride out’ the effects of the recession than the black community, leading to tension on either side.

“It is not as much of a crisis for the white community because they have inherited wealth to fall back on. For the most part the black community does not have that same safety net.”

He said the consequences for a black person losing their job would be much more significant and could lead to them defaulting on a mortgage.

But he said white families didn’t suffer the same effects because they had, on average, greater savings, higher incomes and wealthier relatives to support them.

“I know of white people who have been made unemployed who still have their children in private school. Some of the tension may be down to those kind of issues.”

The Bermuda Omnibus Survey polled 400 residents between March 8 and 19 this year. The poll also showed that white people were more likely to report tension (52 per cent) than black people (42 per cent).