Potential Employment Opportunities for Pacific Island Migrant Workers in Canada to Assist Economic Development

Abstract

The World Bank has previously outlined an economic development case for expanding
labour mobility in the Pacific Region. Following from this, the labour markets in some
developed countries are now partially open to Pacific Island workers. However, there may be
other and greater opportunities for integration of regional labour markets in other industry
sectors. The World Bank has proposed that it should be left to private and public sector
employers to identify where these opportunities are, while the Governments of respective
countries should play a facilitating role. Nevertheless, to promote a constructive dialogue it
would be helpful to have some indications of the prospects for this integration with respect to
some specific countries and selected industry sectors. This paper fulfils this indicative role by
outlining relevant employment opportunities for Pacific Island migrant workers in specific
Canadian industry sectors. It has consequently contributed to informing the World Bank’s
policy agenda of promoting the circular migration of labour within the Asia-Pacific region.