The Department of Statistics says 107 businesses opened since the passing of Hurricane Irma, a majority in the food-service area. They hired a combined 386 workers.
On the other hand, the overall number of persons employed dropped from 13,831 before September 6, 2017, to 13,104. One can thus argue that roughly half the jobs lost were compensated with new positions.
Of course, this is based on information received from more than 1,800 but not necessarily all actively-operating entities. The data mentioned could therefore still change somewhat.
In addition, some people temporarily out of work and expected to be on the job again when, for example, damaged resorts reopen might not consider themselves unemployed. This means the actual social situation on the ground may be considerably worse than the survey results indicate.
Still, when one considers what a severe blow the dominant hospitality industry and local economy took less than a year ago, these figures are somewhat reassuring. A quickly-rebounding cruise sector combined with insurance payments and early relief aid primarily from the Netherlands no doubt helped to keep things going.
However, the latter two money sources are fast drying up, which makes starting to release the bulk of Dutch recovery assistance to be provided via the Trust Fund at the World Bank, and full restoration of the stayover tourism product so urgent.
Recent developments such as the purchase of the former Radisson at Anse Marcel to be converted into an all-inclusive property and plans to create at least a temporary passenger facility inside the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) terminal building are most welcome in that regard. “The Friendly Island” is clearly on its way back.
