Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association, 4 April 2024 – The first quarter start of the tourism year, although expected to be quieter with the Easter long weekend pushed out to the end of March rather than earlier as in recent years, turned out to be busier than expected.
And this was despite the long spells of incessant rain causing flooding around Fiji, the intermittent thunderstorms and the infrequent displays of sunnier days. But this is Cyclone Season and Fijian businesses in the western division, including tourism operators; know this is simply weather that is par for the course and best prepared to reduce any negative impacts of the ensuing flooding, inaccessible roads and water or power cuts that inevitably take place.
Amidst this blur, the tourism industry continued its usual bustle of activities, although many operators were eagerly anticipating the off-peak season for essential maintenance and repairs on accommodations, facilities infrastructure and equipment.
The first quarter also kicks off the usual evaluations for workforce resourcing, performance reviews, training and ensuring we have the right numbers of people with the right skills, in the right jobs in preparation for the high seasons we will see from May and June onwards.
The perfunctory advertising of scarce skills is commenced as required in earnest in the newspapers, although everyone knows full well, that those skills will not be available here.
Skills like resort general managers who can run an island resort, know how to run boat engines and generators smoothly, operate desalination plants, organise activities and keep guests safe through cyclones and storm surges.
Or that rare 2-for-1 combination of a resort manager who comes with a partner who is an experienced dive instructor. Skilled dive instructors are hard to find, as are experienced executive chefs, spa therapists who can manage the spa, landscapers, maintenance managers who have experience with large swimming pools, hotel plumbing and electrical works and basic carpentry skills.
In short, a whole host of experienced tourism workers are required to ensure the safe operations of a hotel, resort, transfer vessel or bus, with another level of skills in place to ensure that these are delivered with the best customer service we can deliver.
If you’re a new investor and you’ve reached level 3 of your journey to invest in Fiji – having been approved over a year or 2, a host of regulatory requirements to get your building started with a TIN, bank account, funds, plans, leases and an EIA; you are probably now waiting for the workers who will get your building started.
Movie productions looking to use Fiji as a location are also waiting.
Construction companies requiring hundreds of workers with a range of skills from road building to heavy machinery repairs or operations are waiting too.
To both upskill our local workforce, as well as replace departing skills, these positions are advertised locally (even though everyone knows these skills are not here) and abroad, and then the process of recruitment through first obtaining a work permit begins.
Navigating the immigration process has emerged as a primary hurdle, with tourism, construction and other industries struggling with the intricacies of obtaining work permits and approvals for foreign workers.
This frustrating process, characterised by its time-consuming and convoluted nature, poses significant barriers to businesses seeking to bolster their workforce with skilled labour from abroad, or for investors – to simply get started.
The fact that it has taken this long for anyone in government involved with supporting the immigration department to access funding, improve their IT systems, review their policies and processes and hire their skilled staff to enable them to perform their functions as a government agency, speaks volumes for the general incomprehension that this challenge alone will significantly impact Fiji’s ability to grow its economy in any measure.
Noted in the last year, and more frequently in the last few months by development partners, IFC, IMF, ADB, World Bank, RBF, economists and the private sector; the commentary and advice around improving access to skilled labour has taken an inordinately long time to sink in.
The scarcity of qualified locals can be attributed to several factors, including the absence of specialised training programs, shifting demographics, and changing preferences among the local workforce.
In Professor Hitendra Pillay’s October 2023 “Review of Scholarship Priority Areas & Way Forward Human Capital Development Plan Report”, he notes – “The supply of sufficient, well-qualified workers is becoming a global challenge, triggered by increased mobility that stems from insecurity caused by man-made disasters, the search for a better quality of life for themselves and the next generation and declining birthrates and ageing populations”.
The “2024 Asia Pacific Human Development Report” notes the Pacific has been very slow in the human development area in comparison to other nations in the Asia Pacific region, even going as far as calling it a “backslide”.
The report further calls for the need to prioritise investments in human development, and this is even more urgent now considering that Fiji’s global ranking on the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) has fallen from 78 to 99 over 20 years.
But challenges like our poorly performing human development investments and output force the private sector to take matters into their own hands as a matter of urgency, with in-house training programs ramped up and comprehensive human development modules getting rolled out.
Prof Pillay’s report recommends that the current urgent demand for a skilled workforce requires a more immediate response; and since the current TVET providers’ capacity is saturated, possible and faster solutions might include partnering with industries that already have training facilities, in-house skills development programs and industry qualified staff to conduct the training.
Funding can be provided for qualifications relevant to local industry demand and affordable to employers. These could create better career pathways for upskilling based on employment opportunities while providing the much-needed steady supply of qualified workers that respond directly to the national demand for workers.
Instead, employers are forced to pay an FNU levy that they see very little training impact for what they need and are forced to retrain and upskill at their own costs to make their workers more effective.
Investing more creatively in training programs, apprenticeships, and career development initiatives is crucial to bridging the skills gap and encouraging more of our population to pursue careers in hospitality, construction, finance, IT or agriculture.
We are calling for creative thinking – because if the current training programs have been around for the last 10 years, then there is a high certainty that those programs are outdated and nowhere near what the industry expectations are.
And it is even more likely, and sadder still, that our graduates and in-service employees are moving overseas to work in areas that have nothing to do with the program they qualified in unless they undertake further training to bridge these gaps. Any research that can be undertaken to determine how correct this assumption is based currently on anecdotal evidence, would provide a clearer warning that our education system has wandered off course.
While we await the outcome of a series of collaborative efforts between government agencies and private sector stakeholders to expedite the review and approval process for work permits, the message from the Asia Pacific Human Development Report is worth repeating here.
We must prioritise the importance of integrating human development and growth strategies into decision-making processes. The focus on people cannot continue to be an afterthought.
We must shift our perspective, where people – both current and future generations – are prioritized in every aspect of our vision and action for the future.
This change, the report recommends, needs to start today. It’s a powerful call to action for a more people-centric approach to development and growth.
But most importantly, the report emphasises the key question of HOW to make change happen.
“It probes the politics of reform and explores how we can spark the spirit of change.
It examines how to enhance governance with foresight, adaptability, and agility to facilitate better implementation and turn new ideas into action”.
Turning new ideas into action!
What better place to start?
Fantasha Lockington – CEO, FHTA (Published in the Fiji Times on 4 April 2024)
Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association
The Voice of the Industry
