The Pacific region suffers from the twin problem of lack of job opportunities, especially for school-leavers and other youths, and a shortage of certain skills, such as teachers, nurses, doctors and lawyers.
Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have identified mobility as a key priority which can help address these problems for both sending and receiving countries. Forum Island Countries can address a lack of job opportunities in their home economies by accessing overseas labour markets, such as under the RSE and SWP schemes in New Zealand and Australia.
Forum Island Countries can also take measures to attract critical skills into their own economy, including by identifying labour shortages and working with Immigration to streamline processes. This type of labour mobility can also have unintended social impacts in both sending and receiving countries.
