The Perfect Storm

Aruba has reached a historic turning point as population ageing and the end of natural population growth coincide with rapidly increasing demand for labor. Tourism expansion, labor migration, housing shortages and growing long-term care needs are creating a system of mutually reinforcing pressures: Aruba’s Perfect Storm. Labor shortages increase migration, migration intensifies housing demand, and population ageing further reduces the workforce while increasing demand for care. These challenges can no longer be addressed through separate sector-specific policies. Aruba’s future prosperity will depend on an integrated and forward-looking approach to demographic change, labor, migration, housing, tourism and healthcare.

The perfect storm

Aruba stands on the eve of a confluence of challenges, each of which is heavy on its own, but which moreover reinforce one another. This document brings together six themes that are normally treated separately, but in reality form one story: a “perfect storm” in which demographics, the labor shortage, hotel and Airbnb expansion, migration, housing construction, and elderly care are linked together in a vicious circle.

Read the complete publication here:

The perfect Storm