AS registrations for the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) and New Zealand Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Work Scheme opens tomorrow, Minister for Employment Agni Deo Singh says approximately 20,000 applications are still pending.
He said the applications were in various categories and they would only open for sectors where there was a shortage of skilled labour.
“And this is about 800 of them,” Mr Singh said.
“And these sectors are, like for age care, we need 300, we need 100 drivers which is Group 5 licence and Group 9. And we need halal meat workers, about 100 of them.
“Apart from that, we have some referrals that are from approved employers. There are 300 of them. So these are the specific categories that we are actually opening up for.
“The rest, we still have that big backlog that we need to clear.”
Mr Singh said they were now processing applications from 2022.
He said both schemes, PALM and RSE, were working well.
“Our remittances are good. As I stated earlier, we have now appointed three country liaison officers and are in the process of appointing the fourth in Australia.
“When we came in, there were no liaison officers to assist our workers out there. So, now we will have four of them.
“All our workers have their phone numbers, and whenever there are any challenges they are faced with, all they need to do is to pick up the phone and call them.
“So, the support is there for them now.”
He said they also regularly visited and met the workers, employers, trade unions and their counterparts in Australia.
“I am happy to say that in the last two and half years, there has been considerable improvement in the terms and conditions of work of our workers out there.”