[Photo: FILE]
Customer service, administration, accounting and similar office jobs in Fiji face major disruption from artificial intelligence within the next five years.
Information Minister Lynda Tabuya raised the concern at the Fiji Trades Union Congress national symposium.
She said the change is already underway and will affect how many Fijians currently work.
“Within the next five years, parts of work that Fijians do today in customer service, in administration, in accounting, in translation, in transcription, will be done by machines. That is a fact.”
Tabuya said the focus must now shift to how workers are supported through the transition.
She warned that the key issue is who benefits from automation.
The question is not whether it happens. The question is who pays for the transition. Will the productivity gains go to capital while displaced workers go home with no safety net at all, she said.
She also questioned whether retraining will be affordable for workers who lose jobs.
Will retraining be a worker’s private problem, paid out of a redundancy package that runs out in six months, or will Fiji and the Pacific be a region where the gains of automation are shared, where retraining is funded, and where unions are at the table when these decisions are made, she said.
Tabuya said government, employers and unions must work together to prepare for the changes.
She also urged stronger advocacy from workers to ensure safeguards are in place as automation expands.
