New Zealand’s summer harvest period is fast approaching and with it the need for seasonal labour. With the international border remaining closed, preventing the usual influx of migrant workers, there is ongoing talk of labour shortages across a range of crops including vegetables, berries...
In an earlier blog with Stephen Howes I explained why the sudden announcement by the Government of Vanuatu to abolish seasonal worker recruitment agents and direct recruitment by employers was a mistake. In an accompanying blog, I set out some of the problems with the current recruitment system...
Vanuatu’s role as the leading sending country for workers in both the Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) and the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme is due to the use of licensed recruitment agents and the capacity for employers to recruit directly. The Deputy Prime Minister of Vanuatu’s...
Writing in 1997, Australian academic Richard Brown noted the “concern that remittances are declining”, and would continue to decline. In fact this pessimism that Brown was observing proved unwarranted. Since the 1990s, remittances to the countries Brown was particularly focused on – Samoa and Tonga...
In the 18 months I have been writing about labour migration from Timor-Leste to Australia a...
Last week the Deputy Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Minister Kalsakau, confirmed speculation that the...
We know that seasonal labour schemes work. We know that they’re better than backpacker or domestic...
Vanuatu has been the most successful participant in Australia’s Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) and...
As reported in the past couple of months, Australia is experiencing a shortage of seasonal workers...
This is the fourth in a series of blogs outlining key findings from the Impact Study of New...
