SUVA (Daily Post/PINA) — Thousands of expatriates have been hired to work in Fiji since the May 2000 coup crisis, according to new figures.
They are filling jobs ranging from professional positions and managers to machinists/technicians for garment factories, the Immigration Department revealed.
It comes amid the disclosure more than 11,500 people have emigrated since the 2000 coup crisis began, many of them professionals and skilled workers.
Dr. Biman Prasad, a senior economist at the University of the South Pacific, said there was a direct link between the number of expatriates being hired and those leaving the country.
Prasad said hiring expatriates would mean that it will be more expensive to do business in Fiji.
He said there was higher cost involved in employing expatriates.
He added: “The point is that if we continue to lose our own professionals and skilled people then we have to bring in these outsiders to fill in the gaps and to keep the business of the day going. And people will choose to migrate for better lives. The level of political instability after the May 1987 coup has set a precedent. The 2000 coup has also had its fair share of effects.”
Many of those leaving are ethnic Indians. During the 2000 coup crisis indigenous Fijian gunmen took hostage and deposed the government led by Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister.
On expatriates, Prasad said there were also areas in Fiji that demanded the expertise of expatriates in order for businesses to become more efficient.
He said globalization or economic integration were also reasons why expatriates would continue to come to Fiji and locals leave.
But he added: “It’s unfortunate that expatriates are still hired in places when we have our own local people available. For instance, we produce a large number of teachers and accountants and yet expatriates are still being brought in. They then end up taking the jobs that should be going to locals.”
