The Tourism Industry on Employment in the Maldives - Essay Example

The World Bank of the report (2014), clarifies that the Maldives is mainly predominant of tourism products such as floating beds thereby, offering direct employment both directly and indirectly to the tourism industry in the world. By creating job opportunities for the youths who work in hotels and other tourism sectors, the nation improves its economic growth. In essence, in the past decade, tourism-related occupations sustainably helped Maldivian gross domestic product to shoot up to 265 percent.  However, the availability of jobs to Maldivian citizens comes with a challenge. Because most of the employment opportunities are concentrated around resort regions, therefore, the majority are forced to travel from upcountry to urban centers, and such a migration pattern causes strain to urban settlements that already have an influx in population resulting in the incision to the economy around town centers.

The Maldives is not only famous for its natural beauty the great ocean, and sandy beaches, the nation’s employment opportunities focus extremely on the truism workforce who are represented by the tourism workforce association (Ellis, 2008; Sharpley, 2002). The workforce recommends that the majority of employees earn very little amount of money while living in a very poor condition susceptible to much less productivity than what is required by the nation per capita. In addition, employment opportunity within the tourism industry alone is not enough to sustain the national grid while the country also lacks other alternative mineral resources. Such a result has made poverty levels remain quite high throughout the nation (Secretariat, 2010).

Maldives fishing sector employs almost 25% of the total national workforce. Through the same industry, employees do get deployed into sectors such as packaging, preparation, and transport that also act as part of the development to growth domestic product (GDP) (Shareef et al. 2008). Up to 1200 species of fish are available within the Maldives, of which the most important is the tuna species that account for 90% of the national export. The involvement of employment opportunities towards the processing and export of tuna improves the fisheries sector that in turn translates to the economic growth of the nation.

Shakeela (2013), argues that the employment trend of Maldives over the past three years shows a high rate of revenue collection from the tourism industry, but the country still ends up spending more than it can generate. The above situation is being driven by a level of uncertainty and the influx of people who are mostly over-dependent on tourism as the only source of livelihood.