Last week the Press had a couple of articles about Filipino nurses working as low paid care workers in Christchurch. According to the Press, trained Filipinos nurses are paying large sums of money to recruitment agencies to secure jobs in the city's hospitals, only to end up in working in nursing homes.
To register as nurses in New Zealand they first have to pass an International English Language Test examination, which is proving to be a major stumbling block for many applicants. Since the Philippines, like most developing countries, has a looming shortage of doctors and nurses, which is arguably more serious than ours, it seems a waste of human potential for them to be working as low paid, semi-skilled workers in a western country rather than as skilled nurses in their home country, where they know the local language and customs.
Care work is also one of the lowest paid professions in the country, with most workers getting paid slightly above the minimum wage of $12 per hour. Before trying to strip the developing world of it's medical staff, it might be an idea to try and offer slightly better work conditions for native workers.
In a sign of the times, the article also revealed that Filipinos were the largest group of net migrants from Asia last year, with 6143 immigrants, up from 5065 the previous year.
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A similar process is under way, and has been for years now, with teachers from Fiji.
We fund their education and training at the University of the South Pacific and then encourage them to migrate to NZ for better paid jobs.
Fiji-Indian teachers are falling over themselves trying to migrate to NZ and elsewhere.
kiwitoffee.
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