SOLOMON ISLANDS LACKS SPECIALISTS: PUBLIC SERVICE

Solomon Islands National flag. Photo credit: SIBC.

The Permanent Secretary for Public Service says Solomon Islands has a shortage of specialists in its workforce and needs more in terms of skills and knowledge supply for the local labor market.

Nego Sisiolo told a JICA press tour last week, 10 percent of the Solomon Islands workforce vacancies that need highly skilled personnel and overseas volunteers programmes such as JICA are currently filling in this gap with its volunteers.

“We experience shortage of skill in specialised areas such as in civil and structural engineers, medical engineers, agroforestry, environmental health, mental health, occupational therapists, water quality analysts and the list goes on.”

The Permanent Secretary also said selecting highly specialist personals has been expensive because there is a lack of competition.

“The public service attempts to deliver such highly specialised services through outsourcing is becoming very expensive simply because of the lack of competition in the labour market, so the few who have that skill around charge the price very high and it’s dearly costly for the public service.”