COVID-19 weakened Fiji’s employment market in the first quarter of this year, according to the Reserve Bank of Fiji.
RBF released its March 2020 Quarterly Economic Review this week where it described labour market conditions as “frail” as the outbreak of COVID-19 globally began to impact the Fiji economy.
“Labour market conditions remained frail over the March quarter. The number of jobs advertised as per the RBF’s Job Advertisement Survey fell over the quarter and over the year,” it said.
RBF tracks the number of job advertisement in the Fiji Times and Fiji Sun and noted that for the first time since 2017, number of jobs advertised in the March quarter had dropped to below 4500.
It said lower recruitment intentions were seen across most sectors including community, social & personal services; construction; wholesale & retail trade & restaurants & hotels, agriculture, forestry & fishing; electricity & water and transport, storage & communication sectors.
Although increases were noted in the finance, insurance, real estate & business services and mining & quarrying sectors, they were not enough to offset the decline.
