MEDIA RELEASE: April 2021
Residents are extremely satisfied with their current jobs and with life in general. Though employment status has not changed significantly since April 2020, initial job losses seen at the start of the pandemic have not rebounded.
BERMUDA: Over the course of the pandemic, employment has been a key focus for our research. It is positive to see that the pandemic has not significantly impacted residents’ employment status overall, with no change evident since April of 2020 in full-time employment, though there has been an increase in part-time employment in that time, as seen in the table on the right. That said, a significant drop was seen between March and April 2020 in full-time employment, which has not recovered. While employment status on its own is an important measure, it doesn’t tell the entire story when it comes to residents’ employment situations. This quarter, we wanted to go one step further and identify how satisfied Islanders are with their current job.
It is very positive to note that the vast majority of employed residents are satisfied with their current job (88%). This has been a metric that our organisation has tracked over the past 20 years on the Island and despite all of the changes people have experienced with respect to their jobs (for example, transitioning to work remotely, adjusting hours, and adjustments to work-life balance), job satisfaction remains at an all time high. Across demographics it is perhaps not surprising to see that satisfaction is greater among those who are earning more than $75,000 per year, while satisfaction is also higher among those who are 35 and older.
While the pandemic changed how many of us work and do our jobs, it also significantly impacted our personal lives. For example, there have been fewer opportunities to gather with friends and family, go to restaurants and bars, and travel. Importantly, however, a strong majority indicate that they are satisfied with their life overall (73% provide a score of 7-10 out of 10). This has also been a measure we have tracked for many years, and since 2006 we have seen that average satisfaction ratings in this regard hover between scores of 7 and 8. Ultimately what this means is that despite everything going on, residents are just as satisfied with their lives as they have been for more than a decade. Like job satisfaction, we see that overall life satisfaction is also higher among those aged 35 and older as well as residents with higher incomes.
These results are part of Narrative Research Bermuda’s Online & Telephone Bermuda Omnibus® Survey conducted in March 2021 with a sample of adult residents of Bermuda (18 years of age or older). The results above are not commissioned by a third party and were collected independently by Narrative Research Bermuda. A sample size of 400 is a well-recognised market research industry standard and provides a representative sampling of residents. The results presented in this document were collected from our online survey of 310 members of Narrative Research Bermuda’s proprietary online panel of adult residents, Bermuda Voice, and a total of 400 surveys were completed by telephone with a representative probability sampling of residents. A sample size of 400 (collected by telephone) corresponds with a ±4.9% margin of error in 19 out of 20 samples. A margin of error cannot be ascribed to the online survey results.
For more information, please contact:
Graham Redford, Managing Partner, Narrative Research Bermuda, 278 8882 or graham@narrativeresearch.bm
Margaret Chapman, COO and Partner, Narrative Research, (902) 493-3834 or mchapman@narrativeresearch.bm