3000 Fijians will be offered work opportunities in New Zealand under the Seasonal Workers Scheme from next year.

The Ministry of Labour has confirmed that arrangements have been finalised with the New Zealand government and a pilot group of 30 Fijian workers will leave the country in the first quarter of 2015.

Ministry Permanent Secretary Taito Waqa says work is now underway to ensure their systems can cater for the exodus

The first pilot program, pilot 30 pilot workers will be exported under the NZ Seasonal Workers Scheme first quarter next year, the target is to increase to 1000 by June, forget about Australia, this is still New Zealand and going towards 3000, now on-top of that Australia is coming through to for next year, so that is why we’re project planning to be able to have a capability of our people and capacity of our foreign employment service to be able to take both loading, start with New Zealand and the Australians comes on.

While the arrangements with Australia are in their initial stages, Waqa expects around the same number of placements if not more.

It’s understood the MOU for Australia’s expanded seasonal workers program is expected to be finalised by the end of the year.