Labour Minister Jone Usamate at the Workshop on Public Sector Partnership to create employment opportunities in the global labour market, at Holiday Inn Suva yesterday. Photo: RONALD KUMAR.
By FARISHA AHMED
With the country producing more intelligent and high-skilled workers, more investments are likely to follow in the future, says the Minister for Labour Jone Usamate.
“Investors look for countries with high-skilled workforce and with Fiji having this kind of people, then investors are likely to set up business here as well,” he said.
Mr Usamate said Fiji can and has the potential to be like Papua New Guinea.
“PNG is ranked amongst the top 10 countries with greater economic productivity and this is because they have industries and resources for their people,” he said.
“We also need to provide such opportunities and create opportunities for our people to build a quality in Fiji.”
Mr Usamate made these comments yesterday as he opened the Workshop on Public Sector Partnership to create employment opportunities in the global labour market.
The workshop was held at Holiday Inn Suva.
Migrating skilled workers
Mr Usamatenoted that Fiji had seen a lot of high skilled workers emigrating off shore seeking better opportunities for a productive lifestyle.
“Between the years 1987 to 2001, Fiji saw about 75,800 people emigrate and 11 percent of these people were highly-skilled workers,” he said.
“Our long term goal is to maintain our highly skilled people in Fiji and this is by creating the right industries and sectors for the people.”
Unemployment rate
The Ministry of Labour’s goal is to reduce unemployment in Fiji from 8.6 percent to 4.2 percent by 2015.
The unemployment rate increased during the period 1996- 1997 from 3.7 percent to 8.6 percent.
“This is a substantial 43 percent increase in the span of 10 to 11 years,” Mr Usamate said.
“There are about 28,006 unemployed personsregistered with National Employment Centre which is approximately 99 percent of unemployed captured in 2007 census.”
Workshop objectives
The objective of workshop is to promote public sector partnership to create overseas job opportunities and reduce unemployment.
It is also to capitalise on the increasing employment opportunities in the global labour market for Fiji’s economic development, to understand the international labour migration trend.
And also the economic and social benefits and risks and to seek the cooperation of stakeholders