Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — January to March 2022

Published: 2 April 2022 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• Russia invades Ukraine: global shockwave hits diaspora communities: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 sent immediate shockwaves through global commodity and energy markets, pushing wheat, sunflower oil, fertiliser, and natural gas prices sharply higher and generating a global inflationary pulse that diaspora households across North America, Europe, and the Caribbean were already beginning to feel by the close of Q1.
• 2021 remittances confirmed at record US$3.49 billion: Bank of Jamaica full-year data confirmed that Jamaica received a record US$3.49 billion in remittance inflows during 2021, the highest annual total in the nation’s history. The record reflected the sustained pandemic-era diaspora response, strong US stimulus effects, and the continued structural growth of the Jamaica–North America remittance corridor.
• COVID-19 Omicron wave subsiding, travel restrictions easing: The Omicron wave that had surged through Jamaica and diaspora countries in December 2021–January 2022 was subsiding by February–March, with hospitalisation and fatality rates lower than feared. International travel restrictions were progressively lifting through Q1, with Jamaica signalling the removal of most entry requirements and setting the stage for the return of diaspora travel.
• 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference: June 2022 preparations intensify: With the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference scheduled for June 2022 in Montego Bay — the first in-person biennial since the pandemic began — the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s preparations were in full swing through Q1, with conference theme confirmation, working group structures, pre-conference webinar programming, and registration systems all in active development.
• Jamaica’s economy: strong Q4 2021 confirms robust recovery: PIOJ’s Q4 2021 economic data confirmed GDP growth of approximately 6.7 per cent for the quarter and strong full-year 2021 performance, driven by tourism’s partial recovery, construction buoyancy, and resilient services. The trajectory provided a positive backdrop for diaspora investment conversations ahead of the June conference.
• Returnees: steady flow continues, housing market tight: Voluntary return migration from the United Kingdom and North America continued at a steady pace through Q1 2022, with returnee demand for property in Manchester, Portland, and St Andrew hill communities contributing to price appreciation in Jamaica’s preferred returnee housing markets. PICA continued processing Returning Residents duty concession applications.

Introduction: War, Recovery, and Conference Preparation

The first quarter of 2022 opened with cautious optimism: the Omicron wave that had disrupted Christmas and New Year was fading faster than feared, vaccination programmes in the major diaspora countries were providing effective protection against severe disease, and the long-anticipated re-opening of international travel was within sight. Jamaica’s economy was recovering strongly from the pandemic’s devastation, and preparations for the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference — the first in-person biennial gathering since COVID-19 — were generating real excitement among diaspora communities.

Then, on 24 February, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the global landscape shifted profoundly. The war’s immediate effects were humanitarian — the refugee crisis, the devastation of Ukrainian cities — but its economic consequences were global and rapid. Food and energy prices spiked immediately. The inflationary environment that had been building since mid-2021 was sharply accelerated. The diaspora communities in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada — already managing post-pandemic cost pressures — faced a new and severe household budget challenge.

This quarterly update draws on the Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Nationwide News Network, RJR News, Bank of Jamaica, Planning Institute of Jamaica, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, PICA, and international news sources to compile the record of Q1 2022.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Global Repercussions for the Diaspora

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 — the largest military operation in Europe since the Second World War — produced immediate and severe global economic consequences that were being felt by Jamaican diaspora communities by the close of Q1. Russia and Ukraine together account for approximately 30 per cent of global wheat exports, 20 per cent of corn exports, and over 50 per cent of sunflower oil exports. Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, through which a substantial share of these exports transited, were blockaded within days of the invasion’s commencement.

Global wheat prices rose by over 50 per cent in the weeks following the invasion. Fertiliser prices — already elevated due to natural gas price increases, since natural gas is the primary feedstock for nitrogen fertilisers — spiked further. Energy prices across Europe surged as sanctions on Russia and uncertainty about European gas supply drove natural gas prices to record highs. The inflationary pulse was global, but the UK — where energy costs were already at historic highs ahead of the April energy price cap increase — was particularly exposed.

For the British-Jamaican community, the timing was extraordinarily difficult. Energy bills were already set to rise by 54 per cent in April 2022 under the new Ofgem price cap, driven by the pre-existing global gas price surge. The Ukraine invasion’s further pressure on energy prices meant that the April increase was likely a floor rather than a ceiling for UK energy costs through 2022. British-Jamaican households preparing for the April increase were simultaneously managing food price increases, the end of pandemic furlough support, and the Bank of England’s interest rate rises. The remittance implications of this multi-front squeeze were beginning to concern BOJ analysts by the end of Q1.

In the United States, the Ukraine invasion accelerated an inflation trajectory that was already running at its fastest pace since the 1980s. US CPI had been at 7.9 per cent in February 2022 before the invasion’s full commodity price effects were incorporated, and gasoline prices — highly visible to American consumers and politically sensitive — were rising sharply. For Jamaican-American workers with commutes by private vehicle — which describes the majority of Jamaican-Americans outside of New York City — the gasoline cost increase was a direct and immediate household budget pressure.

2021 Remittances: Jamaica’s All-Time Record

Amidst the upheaval of Q1 2022, the Bank of Jamaica’s confirmation of full-year 2021 remittance data provided a remarkable milestone: Jamaica had received a record US$3.49 billion in personal remittance inflows during 2021, the highest annual total ever recorded and an approximately 20 per cent increase over the pre-pandemic 2019 level. The record reflected the sustained and extraordinary diaspora response to the pandemic: the combination of reduced personal travel to Jamaica (which redirected discretionary spending into formal remittances), heightened anxiety about family welfare on the island, and the direct and indirect effects of the US government’s pandemic stimulus payments on Jamaican-American household liquidity.

The 2021 record established a new benchmark for Jamaica’s remittance corridor and provided an indication of the structural level of overseas transfers that Jamaica could sustain beyond the pandemic’s exceptional conditions. While analysts universally anticipated some normalisation from the 2021 peak — with the return of travel, the end of stimulus payments, and the easing of pandemic anxiety all pointing toward moderation — the expectation was that the 2022 total would remain at a historically elevated level, well above pre-pandemic norms.

The remittance record was significant beyond the macroeconomic statistics. For the millions of Jamaican families who received regular transfers from overseas relatives, the pandemic years had demonstrated the diaspora’s capacity and willingness to increase support when Jamaica faced adversity. The record was both a financial achievement and a statement about the quality of the transnational family bonds that sustain Jamaica’s diaspora relationship.

COVID-19: Omicron Fading, Borders Opening

The Omicron variant of COVID-19, which had swept through Jamaica and the major diaspora countries in December 2021 and January 2022, was receding by February–March. Omicron’s higher transmissibility had produced a sharp surge in case counts but, critically, its lower rate of severe disease in vaccinated populations had prevented the ICU crisis that earlier waves had threatened. By March 2022, hospitalisations were declining in Jamaica, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and the public health consensus was moving toward endemic management rather than pandemic suppression.

The easing of Omicron coincided with progressive removal of travel restrictions across the major diaspora countries. The UK ended its remaining COVID travel requirements in March 2022. The United States maintained its testing requirement for inbound international travellers through Q1 but was signalling relaxation. Jamaica had already established a largely open border posture with vaccination and testing options for inbound travellers, and was preparing for the full removal of restrictions that would allow diaspora travel to return without the complexity and cost of pre-departure testing.

The impending travel recovery was significant for the 9th Biennial Conference preparations. A June 2022 in-person conference required diaspora participants to be willing and able to travel to Montego Bay, and the removal of travel restrictions through Q1 was steadily lowering the barriers to conference attendance. By March 2022, conference registration was open and diaspora community organisations were actively promoting attendance among their members in the US, UK, and Canada.

9th Biennial Conference: Preparations in Full Swing

The 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, scheduled for 18–21 June 2022 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, was the centrepiece of Jamaica’s diaspora engagement calendar for 2022. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s conference planning team was in full operation through Q1, managing the logistics of what was expected to be the largest diaspora gathering since the 2018 8th Biennial Conference and the first in-person biennial since COVID-19.

The conference theme — “Diaspora Rising: Partnership for Sustainable Development” — was selected to convey both the diaspora’s resilience through the pandemic period and the government’s ambition to deepen the partnership into new domains of economic development, institutional collaboration, and knowledge transfer. Pre-conference webinars were scheduled across multiple thematic areas, providing diaspora community members who could not attend in person with an opportunity to engage with the working group process and submit input to the conference agenda.

The conference’s working group structure was being finalised through Q1, with thematic areas covering diaspora investment, housing and returnees, education and youth, health and social services, culture and creative industries, and governance. Government ministries were assigned as lead agencies for each working group, ensuring that the conference outputs would be received by the agencies with implementation responsibility rather than left solely within the MFAFT’s diaspora portfolio.

Economic Performance: Strong Q4 2021 Confirms Recovery

PIOJ’s Q4 2021 economic data, released in early 2022, confirmed GDP growth of approximately 6.7 per cent for the quarter, bringing the full-year 2021 performance to a strong positive outcome after the catastrophic contraction of 2020. The Q4 result was driven by tourism’s continued partial recovery — with visitor arrivals significantly below pre-pandemic levels but growing month-on-month as vaccination rates improved and travel restrictions eased — along with strong construction activity and resilient services sector performance.

The 2022 economic outlook was positive as Q1 began, with the tourism recovery expected to continue accelerating as international travel restrictions lifted and pent-up demand from diaspora visitors and traditional tourism markets was released. The government’s fiscal programme was on track, with the debt management targets being met and the IMF programme benchmarks maintained. For diaspora investors evaluating Jamaica as an investment destination, the economic fundamentals were more constructive than at any point since the pre-2007 growth period.

Returnees and PICA

Voluntary return migration from the United Kingdom continued at a steady pace through Q1 2022, with the cohort of retiring Windrush generation members and working-age lifestyle returnees both represented in the Returning Residents processing flows. PICA’s processing of duty concession applications was functioning within established parameters, though community organisations continued to flag information access as a persistent gap — too many potential returnees were not learning about the Returning Residents programme until after their move was already planned and partially organised.

The housing market in Jamaica’s returnee-preferred parishes — Manchester, Portland, and the cooler hill communities of St Andrew — remained tight and expensive relative to many returnees’ expectations. The combination of diaspora demand for Jamaican property — which had increased during the pandemic years as diaspora members spent less on travel and more on Jamaican assets — and the construction sector’s focus on mid-to-high-income residential development had reduced the supply of affordable homes in the communities most sought after by returning residents. Community groups were calling for the government’s housing policy to more explicitly address the returnee cohort’s needs ahead of the June conference.

Deportees: Biden Administration Policy Continues

The Biden administration’s immigration enforcement framework — characterised by targeted enforcement focused on serious criminal convictions, national security cases, and recent arrivals, rather than the broad deportation sweeps of the preceding administration — continued to generate a baseline of removal flights to Jamaica through Q1 2022. PICA’s deportee reception and processing protocols were well-established, and RISE Life Management Services maintained its reintegration support offer for arriving deportees. Community advocacy organisations in the Jamaican-American diaspora continued their case-by-case interventions on behalf of long-settled community members facing removal.

Outlook for Q2 2022

The second quarter of 2022 will be defined by the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference in June. The success of the conference — measured by the quality of working group engagement, the substantiveness of government commitments, and the enthusiasm of diaspora participants — will set the diaspora engagement agenda for the subsequent two-year conference cycle. After two years of COVID disruption, the in-person return of the biennial carries an exceptional significance for the diaspora community’s relationship with Jamaica.

The Russia-Ukraine war’s economic consequences will continue to shape diaspora household budgets through Q2. The UK’s April 2022 energy price cap increase — a 54 per cent rise — will further squeeze British-Jamaican households. The remittance trajectory through Q2 will be closely watched: whether the global inflationary environment produces a measurable decline in UK-origin inflows relative to 2021 will be an early indicator of the war’s impact on Jamaica’s overseas financial lifeline. The US labour market’s strength remains the most important single variable for Jamaica’s remittance outlook, and the Federal Reserve’s tightening cycle — which began in March 2022 — will be watched carefully for its potential employment effects.

This 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 April 2022.