Pacific Polytech chairperson Dr Ganesh Chand believes about 80,000 unskilled indigenous Fijians are waiting to be skilled for employment.
He told The Fiji Times that immigrant workers were being hired to fill positions that indigenous and locals could fill, if trained properly.
“The majority of Fijians are unemployed in Fiji,” he said.
“Indigenous, you go anywhere, they are unemployed. That’s the reality.”
Dr Chand said a minimum of 60,000 indigenous in Fiji — “my estimate is about 80,000” — fall into that category.
“Young, healthy, waiting for someone to train them so that they can earn a living.
“So, there are jobs there, which foreigners are filling. There are people able to fill them, but they don’t have the skills.”
While acknowledging that many young people have obtained formal qualifications, he says this alone does not guarantee employment.
“See, qualification is one thing, but skill is another.
“So, there are a lot of graduates who are unemployed. They have qualifications, but they don’t have the skills.
“If you skill them, they get the jobs, and that’s what we are doing. We are skilling them to get jobs.”
Dr Chand questioned the level of national effort being directed at solving the issue.
“Now, who else is doing it? Is there anyone doing it in Fiji?”
Dr Chand’s comments come amid criticism of the $7m budget allocated to Polytech in the 2025-2026 National Budget.
Businessman Semi Tukana had taken to his social media account to raise his concern on the allocation, saying $7m was a lot of taxpayer money being channelled to a single private company.
“From what I heard on the grapevine is that they are just churning out numbers with very low-quality qualifications,” Mr Tukana said.
