More than 100 Fijians are being eyed to take on seasonal work in the first quarter of this year, says the Minister for Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations, Jone Usamate.

At the same time, Mr Usamate hopes the opportunities will benefit our unskilled people because there was a shortage of them here.

“Last year we had more than 300 seasonal workers and we are glad to see that numbers have doubled from 2015 to 2016, and this year we hope to double that again,” the minister said.

“Workers going will continue and we have about a thousand people in the work ready pool and our aim is to try to make sure that we can get work opportunities for those.

“We will continue to look for opportunities if the opportunities come up. There has been some talk of looking at opportunities in the United States of America.

“The advantage of Australia and New Zealand is the schemes that we have there are Government to Government agreement so that we know that when people go they will be looked after too because they are under Government’s regulations.”

Mr Usamate said they would continue to look for other opportunities, but they will make use and try to expand the opportunities that they have with Australia and New Zealand. 

Edited by Naisa Koroi

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