Prepatation For Industry Skills Gaps
Moving overseas is a thrilling prospect for anyone who can’t shake the itchy feet out of their bones.
As such a growing number of Fijian are packing up and crossing oceans to work, study and retire overseas.
Many are now being challenged by finding a job, making friends, and adapting to foreign customs with their newly adopted country.
With the increase in cost of living here in Fiji, it has been witnessed that most have opted as a driving factor to greener pastures.
This has also seen an increase Fijis remittance as compared to other developing countries.
For those that are looking to move abroad could get a better salary overseas, whilst, it has been witnessed that is considered moving overseas because the quality of life or cost of living was better.
Most have experienced living and working in another country as the lifestyle they were after and that they offer.
Most of these workers that have moved overseas are tradespeople who are very hard to replace due to their skill, knowledge, and workmanship.
Companies are struggling to get the right people who have the right skills as per job market shift.
The TVET programmed that is being prepared by the Fiji National University (FNU), National Training Productivity Centre (NTPC) relates well with the needs of the industry in Fiji to address the skills gap of tradespeople who are still committed to their designated work level without the proper certification.
The rise in voters here in Fiji for the December 14, 2022, election as compared to 2018 has seen a boost in population and this has made us to be contend with dwindling and ageing demographics.
There have been more deaths than births every year in Fiji, for example.
Residents are also increasingly abandoning rural areas e.g., Labasa cane farmers are moving to urban areas.
This urban drift has seen the increase of those residing in squatter areas, the rent and house sale have also increased drastically.
As Fiji is not alone in this, demographic decline has already been a reality for nine of the 56 countries that Forbes examined in the year 2017.
So, the negative impact on these to our societies is expected to worsen over time:
Shortages in the workforce, Reduced consumption, Businesses closing down, Greater spending on healthcare, social security, and pensions,
A sluggish economy. Unsurprisingly, many of this overseas governments are now using incentives (like cheaper houses) to lure foreigners to their shores, in a bid to fill population gaps, the increase of fruit picking quoter by Australia and New Zealand, memorandum of understanding with the National Employment Centre (NEC) and other overseas work scheme.
While there were several companies and international markets targeting Fijians with job offers and packages, this has enabled Australia and New Zealand being the largest beneficiary, apart from USA, Canada, France, and Great Britain for those new opportunities overseas.
Creating talent that is inclusive and Industry ready
We should understand that in our Fijian construction market, there are barriers.
On these various barriers, we will look at three barriers,
First, being the high turnover is a budgetary concern where construction firms should be keenly aware of all the financial consequences of hiring and educating new employees on a continuous basis. Recruiting requires an immense amount of time, resources, and effort, large or small, no matter the size of the construction business. Some construction business in Fiji can make the greatest return on investment by hiring and keeping its workers, as it is much less costly to hold employees once they are at the door.
Whilst, today’s highly competitive work markets, the utmost importance
is the talent, not to mention the time and expense savings of not having to replace those workers. Although many businesses offer training with lip service, the wise ones emphasise the skilled trades FNU/NTTPC apprenticeship programmes offer, which have proven to increase the retention rate of their own employees.
The second being the NTPC Apprenticeship Programmes to Help Retain Talents, where cultivating talent is of critical importance in today’s intensely competitive job markets, not to mention our recent political party manifestos that have stressed its importance, the time required and its cost savings in not having to replace those jobs.
While several organizations offer lip service training, the wise ones emphasize the apprenticeship programs for skilled trades like the former PWD, FSC, FEA/EFL and others, which have shown that the retention rate of their own employees is increased due to this program initiatives.
Alternately, these services provide young or low-skilled adult workers with a viable career path, that have provided immediate jobs, steadily growing salaries, and provide a pathway to a sustainable, prosperous career here in Fiji and other overseas countries.
From the perspective of a business, apprenticeship programs significantly help to produce highly qualified workers and have been shown to not only improve employee earnings, but also increase the productivity levels of sponsoring businesses.
As employers are the lifeblood of every apprenticeship program and must play an active role in supporting, supplying apprentices with work, overseeing the implementation of instruction, providing firsthand learning and professional
experience, and contributing to the program financially, of course at the NTPC.
Formal apprenticeship programs get more enticing by the day, along with the apprentices earning immediate pay and promotions as they reach certain targets.
The third being the construction as a viable career option,
With the extremely low unemployment rate, businesses in all sectors are seeking innovative ways to recruit and retain not only new tertiary graduates, but also find themselves able to give long-time workers’ salaries and benefits that would have been unheard of as recently as a decade ago.
In the past, two or three generations of the same family members were very popular for construction firms to hire, this is not prevalent anymore.
For several reasons, the younger generations are looking at construction elsewhere as the new trendy business-of-the-day is.
The number in the sector is even lower, likely due to several factors in a largely male-dominated industry, including sexual harassment, societal expectations, and the lack of sufficient support for women. Often, mentoring is also a major problem with too few women in management positions.
The performance of some people are suppressed by walls, which in turn drags them to the bottom line down.
The more we know about these challenges, the more ways we will discover to eliminate them.
NTPC aims to have a special talent training environment for all. Training that are can be tailormade to the training courses within our capacity to meet the unique requirements of the industry.
With minimum document requirements, there are no tuition fees and
easy enrollment procedures, and we also appeal to school dropouts and provide them with an opportunity for a better future.
The creation and execution of our brief courses contribute to fast job opportunities.
Flexible preparation to fit business job schedules is also provided by NTPC, on which 25 per cent of our technical trainers have over 10 years of industrial experience, and 75 per cent of our technical trainers have over 20 years of experience.
Training for people with special needs was also provided by NTPC. Our programmes/courses are created and vetted by the Industry Training Advisory Committee based on industry requirements and demands (ITAC).
NTPC has more than 20 years of experience in offering international franchising credentials.
These has enabled our graduates to be globally ready for any training required, as in Australia and New Zealand, to achieve superior recognition. APO, TAFE WSI/NSW, CompTIA, ICDL Asia, Pearson Vue, Pivot Point and FIT College are our important strategic partners. With this the National Training & Productivity Centre (NTPC) has a very clear mission, one of which is to provide industry in-service training and specialist consulting services to help the industry meet its productivity targets.