The expansion of productive employment and other income-earning opportunities is one of the major human development issues and challenges facing the island countries of the Pacific region.
Job creation is critical for improvement in the quality of life and well-being of Pacific peoples.
Most populations have been growing steadily but economic growth has been insufficient to create an adequate number of jobs to meet the rising demand for them. As a consequence, more and more Pacific people, particularly young people, are unemployed or underemployed and unable to contribute fully to family and national well-being. The failure of the economies of the Pacific to generate sufficient wage employment opportunities is producing a major strain on traditional social support networks and is a serious threat to the cohesion of Pacific societies. The Suva Declaration on Sustainable Human Development in the Pacific, adopted by Pacific Ministers of Planning and endorsed by the 1994 South Pacific Forum, gives emphasis to the need to expand employment and livelihood opportunities and enhance the productivity of the rural and subsistence sectors. Furthermore, national summits such as Papua New Guinea's National Employment Summit in December 1994 and Fiji's National Economic Summit in May 1995 recognised the need to generate employment opportunities for sustainable livelihoods in the formal, informal and subsistence sectors of the economies.