Last year more than 6,600 workers left Samoa for seasonal worker programs, double the number leaving before the pandemic
their seasonal work schemes. Although traditionally aimed at low or unskilled workers, Australia’s Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme is now targeting skilled workers in the hospitality, aged care and tourism sectors.
Ah Liki Wholesale has lost 20-25% of its workers over the past two years, Westerlund says, compared with about 5% annually before the pandemic. He says “virtually the entire private sector” has been affected, unable to compete with wages offered abroad.“A lot of the new guys might only work for one month and then all of a sudden they go on the scheme. It seems like they’re filling in the time by working locally, but the ultimate goal is to go overseas to pick fruit and veggies,” Westerlund says.
The acting prime minister, Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio, singled out the Australian government’s failure to consult Apia before announcing a new visa category in October, which will see up to 3,000 people across the Pacific and Timor-Leste invited to apply for permanent residency in Australia. A main street in Apia, the capital of Samoa, which had 6,600 people depart in 2021 for seasonal worker programs in Australia and New Zealand.“They will take our workers in [the] tourism industry, hospitality, teachers and police officers and will take our“They’re leaving a very big gap back home,” says Prof Regina Scheyvens of Massey University’s Institute of Development Studies of the seasonal worker programs.
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