7,000 jobs lost, 6,000 fewer public school children since Lou Leon Guerrero became governor

About 50,000 Guamanians and foreign workers were working in the Guam private sector when Eddie Calvo left office at the start of 2019, and Lou Leon Guerrero replaced him. According to the latest current employment report (for June 2023), 49,190 people remain employed in the private sector workforce on Guam. But they aren’t the same people.

And despite news releases from Adelup celebrating the latest employment reports, a closer look at the employment numbers tells a depressing story about Guam’s economy while Ms. Leon Guerrero has been in charge.

According to a comparison between the current employment report of March 2019 and the latest report in June this year, five of  the eight major private sector industry sectors reported massive declines in employment numbers totaling nearly 7,000 fewer jobs since Ms. Leon Guerrero became the governor.

The figure only is offset by an increase of 80 jobs in the agriculture sector, 60 jobs in the manufacturing industry, and a whopping increase of 5,550 workers in construction. The vast majority of those jobs are not held by Guamanians, but by foreign workers.

Local jobs took a major hit in the services industry, with 1,070 fewer hotel workers and 2,000 fewer workers in all other sectors of services. The decrease from 18,890 services workers by the end of the Calvo era to only 15,820 as of June is a 16.25 percent decrease in this one industry category alone.

The retail industry took the next biggest hit, with data reporting 2,090 fewer jobs since Ms. Leon Guerrero took office. The decrease from 13,790 jobs at the start of 2019 to only 11,700 today represents a 15 percent decrease in employment at retail outlets throughout the island.

The transportation and public utilities industry category took a 22 percent hit, with 1,030 fewer jobs today than the 4,650 there were in March 2019.

The wholesale industry’s employment numbers declined by 10 percent, with 250 fewer jobs. And the financial services industry took a 15 percent dive in employment with 390 fewer jobs.

A total of 6,830 private sector jobs across these five industry categories were lost during this four-year period.

But where did these former workers go? Adelup has celebrated a low unemployment rate, according to its latest news release on the matter. But, unemployment only measures the numbers of people actively looking for work during the survey period. Guamanians who used to work on Guam four years ago and have since left, thus will not figure into the unemployment numbers.

However, data from the Guam Department of Education could help to corroborate the theory that many of those who lost their jobs since 2019 have taken their families off island.

According to Kenneth Swanson, the superintendent of education, in an October 4 email to Kandit, “We are faced with a specific challenge in reduced local budgets, declining enrollment across the system – now 23,847 down from nearly 30,000 three years ago.”

According to GDOE’s official student enrollment for School Year 2018-2019, which comes closest to the March 2019 current employment report, there were 29,680 public school students four years ago.

That means there are 5,833 fewer public school students this year. Kandit has checked the enrollment for most of the private schools for the same period comparison. Most report lower enrollment as well.

The mortality numbers for these years come no where close to accounting for the sudden and dramatic loss of jobs and public school student enrollment.

Public welfare numbers also have decreased during this period.

So, unless thousands more Guamanians since Mr. Calvo left office simply are eating the chickens that cross the road and are not sending their children to school, several thousands of our people have left Guam since Lou Leon Guerrero came to power.