Finance industry workers and domestic helpers employed in the Cayman Islands on work permits will receive special treatment on immigration requirements, according to proposals made by Premier McKeeva Bush’s administration.

Changes reported last week by the Caymanian Compass detailed the creation of a committee that had been formed to assist financial services-related businesses in speeding their applications through the work permit process as well as allowing longer three-to-five year work permits to be approved for that industry as a matter of course.

The committee is also expected to help provide certainty for financial services companies who make key employee applications.

However, financial services workers are not the only group of foreign workers in Cayman that needs a helping hand, Premier Bush said.

“Myself and my colleagues are faced every day with the suffering of our own Caymanians who, due to the inflexibility of the current seven year rollover, are forced to make trusted helpers leave for a year…often to the detriment of those they care for,” Mr. Bush said during a Tuesday press conference.

Mr. Bush said special consideration should be given to caregivers and domestic helpers who are employed by families to take care of children, elderly or the infirmed.

“The thinking is that such persons may be permitted to stay beyond the seven year limit, subject to a review of their position by the work permit board on an annual basis, and subject to such other conditions as are thought necessary to avoid abuse and to protect the Islands,” he said. “This would be limited to those in positions where they are…that is, caring for people for a substantial number of years.”

Cayman Islands law requires all foreigners working in the private sector to obtain a work permit from the Immigration Department before becoming gainfully employed in the Islands.

Those workers must leave Cayman after seven years of continuous residency, unless they obtain a key employee status designation from their employers. That key employee status allows foreign workers to remain long enough (eight years) to apply for permanent residence – the right to reside in Cayman for the rest of their lives.

Mr. Bush stressed that while his administration was making concessions to the financial services industry and domestic helpers, employers were being put on notice that they would no longer be able to use “excuses” for not hiring Caymanians.

“Statistically, there are about 25,000 work permit holders in these Islands,” the Premier said. “The categories we are addressing – that is the top persons in our financial community and the much needed domestics together – will account for less than 10 per cent of that entire work permit force.”

For the other 90 per cent, Mr. Bush said there were jobs within that workforce that unemployed Caymanians could do.

“They must be given the opportunity to do those jobs,” Mr. Bush said. “The large category of skilled and semi-skilled workers must be closely scrutinised by our immigration boards and our Labour Department.”

“Seven years (referring to the term limit on foreign workers’ residency) does not mean a person is entitled to stay here seven years,” he continued. “When the law says seven years, it means the maximum time a person can stay.”

Mr. Bush also warned that substandard wages for certain job categories would not be tolerated by the various immigration boards that govern the work permit and business staffing plan approval processes.

“I have been told…Caymanians won’t work for $4 or $5 an hour,” he said. “The truth is…no one in the Cayman Islands should have to work for $4 or $5 an hour. It is simply impossible, given our cost of living, for anyone to survive on such a wage.”  

Immigration Review Team Chairperson Sherri Bodden-Cowan said that Mr. Bush’s comments did not intend to infer that Cayman was adopting an ad hoc minimum wage. Rather, she said that it was already the responsibility of the immigration boards to determine whether an employee’s salary was sufficient to support themselves and any dependents they bring to the Islands.

Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said that restaurant wait staff, for instance, may be allowed to earn a salary of $4 or $5 per hour if their gratuities would earn them much more than the hourly wage.

If the salary was deemed insufficient, the Premier said the employer would either have to pay more or have their work permit application refused.

“If our board can’t agree, well, they’ll simply go home too,” he said. “They don’t need to be on that board.”

Mr. Bush said Caymanians would also have to do their part in becoming active members of the workforce.

“When given the opportunity, Caymanians must show up to work; they must leave their personal problems out of the workplace,” Premier Bush said. “They should be there on time and simply do the job they are being paid to do.”

“There is not now and there has never been something for nothing.”

$1M for residence

Mr. Bush has also proposed a special category under the Immigration Law that would allow extremely wealthy foreign residents to, in effect, purchase the right to remain in the Cayman Islands for the rest of their lives.

The immigration category would allow a limited number of permanent residence grants for people whose net worth is greater than $10 million.

“The holders of the new category of permanent residence will be expected to spend time in the Islands each year,” Premier Bush said. “A fee of $1 million will be payable upon the issue of the new residency facility.”

Mr. Bush said this proposal was not a new concept. In fact, Cayman already allows retirees to reside in the Islands for up to 25 years provided they are independently wealthy and agree to invest a certain portion of that wealth in Cayman.

“Research has shown that there are a number of high net worth individuals who would be interested in a similar residence category in these Islands,” Mr. Bush said.

The creation of the new immigration category would have to be approved by the Legislative Assembly.