Pacific island countries are looking for new ways to encourage private sector-led employment opportunities, but face multiple challenges: the relatively small size of their economies, distance from markets, and high costs of doing business.

But new development opportunities offer these countries the chance to leverage their unique potential to promote job creation.

Here are spme things ADB, development partners and governments can do to create more sustainable and decent jobs in the region.

Big infrastructure projects typically require substantial labour input, but contractors tend to limit their local hiring to short-term unskilled labour, and import much of their skilled and semi-skilled labour needs.

While the local pool of skilled labour is often limited, contractors should hire and train more workers in construction. For instance, a recent report on Papua New Guinea presents options to include skills development in project design.