Potential for Pacific Islands to tap into online jobs market [1]
Wednesday, January 20, 2016 - 18:26. Updated on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 - 18:27.
Tonga and the rest of the Pacific Islands could tap into an online market to create thousands of jobs in IT-related industries according to a World Bank study released in December.
The study has found that up to 10,000 jobs could be created across Tonga, Samoa and Fiji by securing outsourcing contracts with international companies. These companies outsource IT and business processes through offshoring and the trend is growing. Jobs such as customer service, accounting, data entry, programing and website design could all be done online. Global online market places such as Upwork, Freelancer and Witmart are well established and further fuel the online job market.
The study found that Tonga, Fiji and Samoa had a competitive advantage over other Pacific countries due to a young and qualified labour market as well as a competitive internet infrastructure, which is rapidly improving. In addition is strong political support as well as the lower wages level compared to the norm in developed countries. Larger countries such as India, Philippines and even a small country like Mauritius currently benefit from job creation in the offshore and online sourcing and IT-enabled industries.
Natasha Beschorner, Senior ICT Policy Specialist, World Bank says that this study shows the potential for Fiji, Samoa and Tonga to tap into the market.
Fiji has taken the lead and has operations currently in place. Offshoring operations for ANZ Pacific Operations and Mindpearl have created over 1,000 Fijian jobs. This resulted in Fiji winning the European Outsourcing Association’s Offshore Destination of the Year Award in 2014.
An estimated US$952 billion per year is generated through outsourcing services globally and Australia and New Zealand are two potential nearshoring markets for the Pacific worth an estimated US$31 billion per year.