Guam's economy has been flat for more than 20 years, Bank of Guam economist Joe Bradley said.

In a presentation today for the Northern Guam Rotary Club, Bradley joked that he probably sounds like a broken record, but the numbers show little to no growth since 1998. He cites the record tourism arrivals as an example. He said despite an increase in visitors, the total spend remains about the same.


"So little has changed in the last 20 years that I basically keep telling the same story over and over and over again," he said. "There are a few things that change from time to time but our growth and payroll employment, the number of jobs that are filled has increased very very little."


Meanwhile, he says the biggest drag has been the foreign labor shortage which has stymied private sector construction. Bradley says while we need new roads and housing to meet the population growth, mostly we need space for businesses to grow.

"That's where it really hits us the hardest, because new commercial buildings, sure they create jobs during the construction phase, but when the building is done and opened it creates a lot of permanent jobs for the businesses that operate from those buildings," he said. "We're not building the buildings, so we're not creating the jobs."


Bradley said the USCIS' hard line on H2-B visa approvals has hurt local projects. A special congressional waiver that allows the military to bring in thousands of skilled foreign labor for buildup related projects has made recruitment of workers for outside the fence construction very difficult.