Since 1987, when the country was destabilized by two military coups, Fiji has suffered a very high rate of emigration, particularly of skilled and professional personnel. More than 70,000 people left the country in the aftermath of the coups, some 90% of whom were Ind-Fijians. With the continuing expiration of land leases and ongoing instability in the aftermath of another coup in 2000, a further outflow of skilled workers has taken place.
A report in 2004 of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, published on 29 June 2005, found that 61% of Fiji's skilled workers have either emigrated or gone abroad as guest workers. Fiji's loss of skilled workers was the world's fourth highest, behind Guyana, Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago. Fiji's Bureau of Statistics recorded 3595 workers as having left the country between January and August 2004. Of these, 414 held professional or technical jobs, 263 were in administrative or managerial positions, and were clerks, supervisors, or related workers, and 118 were sales workers. Ind-Fijians comprised more than 90% of those leaving.
Fiji's economy is increasingly reliant on remittances from citizens working overseas. Personal remittances now run to more than F$200 million a year, earning more than traditional sectors like sugar and garment manufacturing. Recruitment of Fijians by foreign private military companies is a growing source of revenue. By mid-2005, there were over 1,000 Fijians working in Iraq and Kuwait as soldiers, security guards, drivers and laborers. In addition in 2006 there were more than 2,000 Fijian soldiers in the British Army, and in 2004 the British defense ministry even sent recruiting teams to Fiji to do initial fitness and aptitude tests, cutting the costs of selection for poor Fijian villagers who could not afford to fly to London to sign up.
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