Micronesia loses workers and residents to mass emigration

AGATENA, June 7, 2024 (Pacific Daily News Guam) – Stories of residents leaving their home islands and labor shortages are common across Micronesia, Micronesian leaders said at a summit in Guam this week.

Regional leaders gathered at the 26th Micronesia Islands Forum on Monday and Tuesday to discuss how to address the issue.

It is a common phenomenon that workers and residents are heading to the United States in search of better opportunities.

Palau Vice President Uduchi Senior said the Free Association Compact provides a lot of money, but the Free Association Compact is also a disaster because Palau’s area is shrinking as Palau residents move to the United States.

“Our numbers continue to go down. It’s now less than 20,000,” Bush shared with other heads of state.

Senior said that because Palau’s minimum wage is just $3.50 an hour, young people are fleeing to the mainland United States.

“For a 30-year-old Palauan with a family, it’s easier to buy a home in the U.S. than to own a home in Palau,” she said.

Senior said Palau’s tourism industry now needs to introduce foreign labor, and the government is trying to allow high school students to obtain diver qualifications so that they can stay and work as tour guides.

Guam’s labor shortage has recently prompted some local tourism industry practitioners to study the possibility of bringing in foreign workers to work in the tourism industry.

According to data shared by Mark Mendiola, vice president of the Pacific Asia Travel Association Micronesia Chapter, the number of tourists in Micronesia as a whole was 900,000 in 2023, compared to more than 2.2 million in 2019 before the pandemic.

David Paul, finance minister of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, noted that high-paying jobs in Micronesia are ultimately filled by imported labor as workers leave the country to seek better-paying jobs elsewhere.

Paul said a large number of Marshallese went to work at the Tyson Chicken plant in Arkansas, USA, where they could earn $20 an hour.

“But we end up paying these foreign workers high salaries… just because they have the skills,” Paul said.

Paul said he believes the district is too focused on college, and that the biggest, quickest-paying investment is for people to get vocational training to become mechanics, electricians and carpenters… PACNEWS

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