Fiji's Business Process Outsourcing Sector — Building a Skills-Export Industry Beyond Tourism

Fiji connected to the Southern Cross submarine fibre-optic cable in 2000, years before most neighbouring Pacific island states had comparable broadband access. That early infrastructure advantage, combined with a 96% literacy rate and English-fluent, culturally adaptable workforce, positioned Fiji's capital Suva as a base for international call centres and back-office services — an attempt to diversify a small-island economy (population under one million) beyond its traditional reliance on tourism and agriculture.
The sector is coordinated by the industry body Outsource Fiji together with government trade-promotion agencies, which have invested in ICT infrastructure resilience and workforce skills-accreditation programmes. Major employers include Centrecom, which alone runs roughly 1,000 staff across four Fiji sites, alongside a wider ecosystem of smaller BPO and contact-centre operators. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many competing outsourcing hubs faced disruption, Fiji's operations reportedly continued functioning, reinforcing its pitch to overseas clients as a reliable, time-zone-advantaged alternative for 24-hour service coverage.
Industry estimates put current sector employment at roughly 9,000 workers (with some counts citing 8,000–10,000) and an annual contribution of about F$280 million to the Fijian economy. The government and Outsource Fiji have set a public target of scaling the workforce to 25,000 by around 2030, and Fijian trade delegations have promoted the sector at international events such as LeadsCon in the United States to attract new client companies.
These figures come from the industry association and trade press rather than Fiji's national statistics office, so they should be read as informed estimates rather than audited accounts. Reaching the 25,000-job target will also depend on Fiji continuing to compete for outsourcing contracts against much larger, lower-cost hubs such as the Philippines and India, a competitive pressure not yet reflected in the published figures.

Read the full analysis: https://news.outsourceaccelerator.com/fijis-bpo-sector-expands/