BUSINESSES will not get labour from offshore if they can find it here in Fiji.
Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) governor Ariff Ali said importing labour was a costly exercise having to fly them over, provide for their accommodation and the need to pay them high salaries.
“The reason they get labour from offshore I simply because of the labour productivity, and there is no certainty in the labour stream,” Mr Ali said at the State of the Economy breakfast in Suva last week.
Mr Ali said in Singapore and Dubai, there were a lot of imported labour.
“I think that we need to now really accept the fact that this is part and parcel of life.
“If you look at the construction industry, and I’ve spoken to a number of large contractors in Fiji, they would not be taking any projects if they did not have this imported labour.
“So that’s a fact, and we now need to see how best we can work with the Immigration department and the Government to ensure that the capital projects are not impacted simply because of labour,” he said.
Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation (FCEF) president Eldon Eastgate said labour constraints was still very much an issue, however, on different fronts.
He said one area of concern from member-employers was ensuring Fiji was working on productive labour – fully engaged and productive in the right projects.
“The second bucket is that naturally, we’ve had a lot of loss of labour and to backfill that, we can’t. Birth rates are minimal and so we do have to import labour,” Mr Eastgate said.
“And if you look at model countries like Singapore, a third of their labour force is foreign nationals, and it does work.
“We just need to ensure that we’ve got policies that support those foreign nationals coming into Fiji.
“But also with the lens of capacity building, taking their knowledge base from what they know from those countries and translating that across our labour force.
“So I think there is definitely an upside of foreign labour coming in.”
Meanwhile, Mr Ali said gone were the days of loyal workers, adding people of today’s generation were different.
“They are mobile. Some of them think they can resign by sending a text or Viber message.
“They apply for jobs all over the world, they get work permits and they go on these schemes and so forth, so the mobility of labour is much different.
“The attraction to go to Australia and New Zealand … I mean you see the number of people who want to go on the various labour schemes.”
“So labour, I think it’s really important that we need to manage this thing, particularly in line with what we have right now. Also, I think it’s important that we need to find this balance between what Government intends to do in its ERA and the private sector.”