The new registration for labour mobility scheme have been deferred until next year due to significant backlog of applications says Ministry of Employment Permanent Secretary Maretino Nemani.

Nemani highlighted this while responding to questions by the Public Accounts Committee on the review of the 2022 Audit Report on General Administration Sector.

He says since 2020, nearly 30,000 people have registered for the labour mobility scheme, leading to a significant delay in processing applications.

“The recognized caregiver training is done by APTC. They accredited our workers that want to go offshore. Now, in terms of facilitating their moving across, we don’t decide, government don’t decide, the employer on the other side decides who they want to take.”

Nemani says despite the current freeze on new registrations, a referral mechanism remains in place.

“So we extended the registration to next year. So we’re processing that right now so we could fill out. So caregiving like agriculture, horticulture, meat processing, hospitality, they all fall under the same type of requirement because it depends on the employer in Australia to say, look, this is who we want.”

According to the Ministry of Employment, around 13,000 Fijian workers have been sent to Australia and New Zealand under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility and New Zealand Recognized Seasonal Employer scheme since 2015.