Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — July to September 2021

Published: 2 October 2021 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• Haiti earthquake: diaspora solidarity mobilises immediately: The magnitude-7.2 earthquake that struck Haiti on 14 August 2021, killing more than 2,200 people and injuring over 12,000, triggered an immediate and substantial response from the Jamaican diaspora across North America and Europe. Community organisations coordinated relief fund collections, diaspora professionals volunteered for emergency medical missions, and the Jamaican government responded through bilateral and CARICOM emergency assistance channels, reflecting the close fraternal ties between Jamaica and its Caribbean neighbour.
• COVID Delta wave: continuing travel disruption through Q3: The Delta variant of COVID-19, which became the dominant strain globally through the summer of 2021, produced a severe fourth wave across unvaccinated populations in the United States, strained healthcare systems in Canada, and generated renewed restrictions in several Caribbean nations. Diaspora travel to Jamaica — anticipated with increasing eagerness as vaccination rates rose — remained suppressed through Q3, with testing requirements and residual travel caution deterring many potential visitors.
• Q3 2021 GDP: approximately 5.9 per cent growth: PIOJ data confirmed Jamaica’s third quarter GDP growth of approximately 5.9 per cent, continuing the robust post-pandemic recovery trajectory. Tourism remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels but continued its gradual recovery, with hotel occupancy and stopover arrivals both improving quarter-on-quarter. Construction, financial services, and agriculture contributed positively to the quarter’s performance.
• Remittances: record-pace year continues through Q3: Jamaica’s remittance inflows maintained their exceptional pace through the third quarter of 2021, with year-to-date totals well ahead of the equivalent 2020 period. The sustained diaspora solidarity response, strong US labour market conditions, and the continued redirection of diaspora travel budgets into formal remittances were sustaining flows at a level that made a new annual record by year-end virtually certain.
• Virtual Diaspora Symposium: three months of follow-through: The Virtual Jamaica Diaspora Symposium of June 2021 — convened as a substitute for the delayed in-person 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference — produced working group recommendations across the full diaspora policy agenda. Three months on, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s implementation unit was engaged in the initial follow-through, with diaspora investment facilitation, housing for returnees, and youth empowerment among the priority areas under active development.
• Biden immigration policy: first months of enforcement normalisation: The Biden administration’s first year in office brought a marked shift in US immigration enforcement posture, with a stated focus on serious criminal convictions and national security threats rather than the broad community sweeps of the preceding years. For Jamaican-American communities, the shift reduced ambient anxiety about ICE enforcement, though the underlying vulnerability of undocumented community members remained unresolved pending Congressional action on immigration reform.

Introduction: The First Edition

This is the inaugural edition of the Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora and Returnee Update, a regular intelligence report covering the full range of issues affecting Jamaica’s approximately four million overseas nationals and their relationship with the homeland. Published each quarter by Jamaica Homes News, the report draws on primary data, government statements, diaspora media, academic research, and community sources to provide a comprehensive and historically grounded record of diaspora developments.

We begin our series at a moment of remarkable intensity in Jamaica’s diaspora story. The COVID-19 pandemic has, paradoxically, demonstrated the diaspora’s extraordinary financial resilience: remittances are running at record levels as the pandemic suppresses travel and redirects diaspora spending into formal transfers. The economic recovery from the pandemic’s 2020 devastation is well underway, with GDP growth sustained through three consecutive quarters. And the diaspora’s Caribbean solidarity instincts were powerfully demonstrated in August with the immediate response to Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

The third quarter of 2021 was shaped by the collision of these positive developments with the continuing disruption of the Delta wave, which suppressed the diaspora travel recovery that had been anticipated through the second half of the year and tested the vaccination infrastructure of diaspora countries that had not yet reached the coverage levels required for genuine reopening. This report documents the quarter’s full picture. Sources include the Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Nationwide News Network, RJR News, Caribbean National Weekly, Bank of Jamaica, Planning Institute of Jamaica, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and PICA.

Haiti Earthquake: Caribbean Solidarity in Action

At 8:29 a.m. on Saturday, 14 August 2021, a magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck Haiti approximately 125 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince, near the town of Les Cayes. The earthquake killed more than 2,200 people, injured over 12,000, and destroyed or severely damaged more than 130,000 homes. It struck a country still attempting to recover from the 2010 earthquake that had killed more than 200,000 people and displaced over a million, and came just five weeks after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, leaving Haiti in a state of profound political and institutional fragility.

The Jamaican diaspora’s response was immediate and substantial. Community organisations across North America, the United Kingdom, and Canada activated their emergency fundraising networks within hours of the earthquake’s occurrence. Jamaican church communities, which have historically been the most reliable rapid-response infrastructure for Caribbean disaster relief, organised collections through their congregational networks. Social media amplified the appeal, with Jamaican community figures in the United States and United Kingdom using their platforms to direct diaspora members toward established and accountable Haitian relief organisations.

The Jamaican government responded through both bilateral channels and the CARICOM emergency response framework, contributing emergency supplies, search and rescue capacity, and technical assistance. Prime Minister Andrew Holness expressed Jamaica’s solidarity with the Haitian people in formal statements, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs coordinated the government’s assistance package with CARICOM’s Disaster Relief Unit. For the Jamaican diaspora, the Haiti response reflected a deeper Caribbean identity that transcends national boundaries: the recognition that the same storms, the same seismic vulnerabilities, and many of the same historical legacies that Haiti confronts in extreme form are shared across the island chain.

Diaspora physicians, nurses, and paramedics were among those who volunteered for emergency medical missions to Haiti in the weeks following the earthquake. The response demonstrated both the depth of the Jamaican diaspora’s professional capacity and the strength of its commitment to Caribbean solidarity — a combination that has made the diaspora an important resource not just for Jamaica but for the broader Caribbean in moments of crisis.

COVID-19 Delta Wave: Suppressing Travel, Not Remittances

The Delta variant of COVID-19, which emerged in India in early 2021 and became the dominant global strain through the summer, produced a severe fourth wave across the United States through July–September 2021, concentrated particularly in states with lower vaccination rates. The US healthcare system was once again under severe pressure in many regions, with ICU capacity being exceeded in states across the American South and Midwest. For the Jamaican-American community, distributed across the country with significant concentrations in Florida, New York, Georgia, and other states with varying vaccination rates, the Delta wave was a source of acute anxiety.

The UK, despite its high vaccination coverage, experienced its own Delta wave through the summer, with the government’s “Freedom Day” removal of restrictions on 19 July producing a surge in cases that tested the assumption that vaccination alone would prevent healthcare system overload. Canada managed a more cautious approach, maintaining stronger restrictions through the summer and achieving high vaccination coverage before its own Delta wave in the autumn.

For Jamaica’s diaspora travel recovery, the Delta wave was a significant setback. Many diaspora members who had hoped to visit Jamaica for the first time since the pandemic began — for family reunions, life events such as weddings and funerals that had been deferred for over a year, or simply the annual visit that is central to the transnational family relationship — chose to postpone their travel through Q3. Jamaica’s own testing requirements for incoming travellers added friction and cost to the travel decision. The result was a Q3 2021 that fell short of the diaspora travel recovery that had been anticipated.

The silver lining — from Jamaica’s remittance perspective — was that suppressed travel continued to redirect diaspora spending into formal transfers. The structural logic that had produced the 2020 and 2021 remittance records — diaspora members sending more money because they could not visit in person — remained operative through Q3 2021, sustaining the exceptional remittance pace that the year had established.

Remittances: On Track for an Annual Record

Jamaica’s remittance inflows through the first three quarters of 2021 were running at a pace well ahead of the equivalent 2020 period, itself a record year. Bank of Jamaica data showed year-to-date flows through Q3 comfortably on track to produce a full-year total above US$3.0 billion, with the Q4 Christmas uplift expected to push the annual figure to a new all-time high. The sustained pace reflected the combined effect of strong US and Canadian labour market conditions, the redirection of diaspora travel budgets into formal transfers, the extended period of diaspora anxiety about family welfare in Jamaica, and the continued direct and indirect effects of US fiscal stimulus on Jamaican-American household liquidity.

The United States labour market’s recovery from the pandemic’s 2020 disruption was generating consistently strong job growth through the summer of 2021. The sectors employing the largest numbers of Jamaican-born workers — healthcare, construction, transportation, and domestic services — were experiencing strong demand, and wages in these sectors were rising as employers competed for workers in a tight labour market. The American Rescue Plan Act’s stimulus payments had boosted Jamaican-American household liquidity directly, and the continued economic recovery was sustaining employment and income levels that supported high remittance-sending capacity.

The digital transformation of Jamaica’s remittance market continued to accelerate through Q3 2021. Mobile application-based transfer platforms — led by Remitly, WorldRemit, Wise, and Jamaica National’s own digital offering — were capturing an increasing share of the market as diaspora members who had adopted digital remittance during the pandemic’s lockdowns remained on digital platforms. The shift was reducing transfer costs, improving transfer speed, and expanding the range of sending options available to diaspora members — developments that were broadly positive for Jamaican recipients while creating competitive pressure on traditional over-the-counter money transfer agents.

Economic Performance: Q3 2021 Confirms Recovery

Jamaica’s Q3 2021 GDP growth of approximately 5.9 per cent was the third consecutive quarter of positive economic growth following the severe contraction of 2020. The result confirmed the breadth and resilience of the post-pandemic recovery, driven by tourism’s gradual return, sustained construction activity, strong performance in financial services and business process outsourcing, and the positive contribution of the agriculture sector. While the headline growth rate reflected base effects from the deeply depressed Q3 2020, the underlying sectoral dynamics were genuinely constructive.

Tourism remained the most closely watched sector. Stopover visitor arrivals through Q3 2021 were significantly below pre-pandemic levels — the combination of ongoing travel restrictions, testing requirements, consumer caution, and reduced airline capacity was keeping arrivals suppressed relative to the record years of 2018–19 — but the trend was positive and accelerating. The US market’s gradual reopening, despite the Delta wave, was providing the most important driver of tourism recovery, given that US visitors account for the largest share of Jamaica’s stopover market.

For diaspora investors watching Jamaica’s economic performance, the Q3 2021 data provided an encouraging signal. The trajectory of recovery — three successive quarters of growth, tourism improving, construction active, services resilient — suggested that the underlying economic fundamentals were sounder than the pandemic had obscured. Investment in Jamaican property, business, and infrastructure was being considered by a meaningful cohort of diaspora members who had accumulated savings through the pandemic years and were looking to deploy them productively.

Virtual Diaspora Symposium: Three Months On

The Virtual Jamaica Diaspora Symposium, held on 18–19 June 2021, had been convened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade as a substitute for the in-person 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference that COVID-19 had prevented. The virtual format had attracted participants from across the diaspora’s global geography — a logistical advantage of virtual events — and working group sessions had produced recommendations across the full range of diaspora policy areas.

Three months on from the symposium, the MFAFT’s implementation unit was in the early stages of translating the symposium’s recommendations into action plans. In the investment facilitation area, preliminary discussions with the Development Bank of Jamaica and the Jamaica Promotions Corporation were exploring what diaspora investment pipeline products might look like and how they could be structured to attract capital from diaspora investors who wanted accessible, vetted, and trusted investment opportunities in Jamaica. In the housing domain, the symposium’s recommendations for improved returnee housing support and for a feasibility study of NHT diaspora housing products were under initial review.

Community organisations that had participated in the symposium were maintaining engagement with the MFAFT on implementation progress. The diaspora community’s collective memory of earlier initiatives — of conference recommendations that generated goodwill but not delivery — meant that expectations were realistic while the aspiration for real change remained strong. The anticipated return to in-person format for the 9th Biennial Conference in 2022 was seen as the next major opportunity to renew and deepen the diaspora partnership.

Returnees: Steady Flow Despite COVID Complexity

Voluntary return migration from the United Kingdom continued through Q3 2021, albeit in an environment complicated by COVID-19 travel restrictions that added cost and complexity to the return journey. Returnees were required to manage pre-departure testing, arrival testing, and in some cases quarantine requirements that added to the logistical and financial burden of an already complex life transition. PICA’s Returning Residents duty concession processing continued within these constraints, with community groups helping to navigate the programme’s requirements for returnees unfamiliar with its details.

The housing market challenge continued to be the most consistently cited concern among returning residents. Jamaica’s property market in the parishes most sought after by returnees — Manchester’s hill communities, the Portland countryside, and the cooler elevations of St Andrew — had seen meaningful price appreciation through the pandemic period, driven in part by diaspora demand from overseas buyers deploying pandemic-era savings into Jamaican property. This diaspora-driven demand was raising prices in communities where returnees also wanted to settle, creating a competition between diaspora buyers who could purchase remotely at the top of the market and returnees arriving with UK pension income who needed to live within tighter budgets.

Deportees: PICA Processing and RISE Reintegration

The Biden administration’s first year in office brought a significantly different enforcement environment from its predecessor. The administration’s enforcement priorities — focused on recent arrivals, national security threats, and serious criminal convictions rather than the broad community enforcement sweeps that had characterised the preceding period — reduced the volume of interior enforcement actions affecting long-settled Jamaican-American community members. However, deportation flights to Jamaica continued at a baseline pace, with PICA’s reception and processing protocols handling arriving deportees within established frameworks.

RISE Life Management Services, the organisation established to provide reintegration support for deportees arriving in Jamaica, maintained its programme delivery through Q3 2021, offering psychosocial support, skills development, employment facilitation, and community network connections to returnees who engaged with its services. Resourcing constraints continued to limit RISE’s reach, with the organisation serving only a fraction of arriving deportees. Community advocacy in the United States continued to push the Biden administration for legislative reforms that would address the legal vulnerabilities of long-settled community members who remained deportable despite decades of life in the United States.

Consular Services: Passport Demand Remains High

Jamaica’s overseas missions continued to face high demand for passport and consular services through Q3 2021, as diaspora members whose travel documents had expired during the pandemic’s travel-suppression years sought renewals in anticipation of the reopening they hoped was approaching. PICA’s overseas service capacity was under pressure, with appointment availability at the Washington embassy and New York consulate cited as a persistent concern by diaspora community groups. The anticipated return of diaspora travel when COVID restrictions lifted was making passport currency an urgent priority for a substantial cohort of diaspora members.

Outlook for Q4 2021

The fourth quarter of 2021 will bring the year’s traditional Christmas remittance uplift — the period of peak diaspora financial generosity — against the backdrop of an Omicron-threatened reopening and a post-Delta reassessment of the pandemic’s likely trajectory. The holiday season will test whether the long-anticipated diaspora travel recovery can finally begin, or whether another wave of COVID will defer it again into 2022. The government’s preparations for the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference — tentatively planned for June 2022 — will intensify through Q4 as the decision on venue and format is finalised.

The full-year 2021 remittance total, to be confirmed by the Bank of Jamaica in early 2022, will either confirm a new record or narrow the margin. On current trajectories, the record appears all but certain — a fitting capstone to a pandemic year in which Jamaica’s diaspora demonstrated, in the most tangible financial terms, the depth and resilience of its commitment to the homeland.

This inaugural Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora and Returnee Update is researched and published by Jamaica Homes News. Sources consulted include the Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Nationwide News Network, RJR News, Caribbean National Weekly, Bank of Jamaica, Planning Institute of Jamaica, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and PICA. All figures and developments are accurate as of the publication date, 2 October 2021.