NEC has 3 employment services - Usamate

The National Employment Centre has three employment services that are operational, so that people who come to the National Employment Centre or the unemployed in Fiji have the option of using any of these three employment services.

This was revealed in Parliament by the Minister for Employment, Productivity and Industrial relations Jone Usamate while responding to FijiFirst MP Howard Politini's question on what the rate of placement of the National Employment Centre is and what other programmes are being pursued by the National Employment Centre to boost placement of graduates in the employment market.

Usamate says that the first employment service is the Formal Employment Service and this is for those who wish to take up some formal employment domestically in Fiji, those who have just left secondary school, or have left employment can register with intent of taking up the formal employment service.

He adds that then there is the Fiji Volunteer Service, that have options open for those coming out of schools, from institutions of higher learning and even those who are retired have the opportunity of becoming volunteers either domestically in Fiji and also increasingly now as a result of requests from other Nations, in other countries in the Pacific.

The Employment Minister says that the third one is the Foreign Employment Services and included in this are the seasonal workers that Fiji is now currently sending across to New Zealand and Australia.

Usamate adds that as part of the Formal Employment Service program The Ministry of Employment has a six month work attachment, where employers are invited to take unemployed people for six months to obtain some kind of work experience, learn basic ethics, build their capacities as a result to become more well-rounded and have the opportunity to get further employment later.

He says that during this attachment the Ministry provides the attachee with an allowance and a portion of that allowance is paid by the employer.

The allowance of $60, is to basically assist the person under work attachment, to come to the place where they are being attached to and go back.

The other half of the attachment is paid by the employer.

He says that from 2014 to 2016 the number of placements under the Foreign Employment Programme totals around 6,269 in which a significant portion of that money comes back into Fiji's economy.