Fiji's Central Division will be allocated more housing lots in coming years to accommodate the growing rural-to-urban drift.

Housing Director Kolinio Bola said Friday that they are working on a number of projects as part of the city-wide informal settlement upgrade.

Bola added that they have initiated the projects because of the increase in rural-to-urban drifts and the project of 1.36 million Fiji dollars (about 780,000 US dollars) is funded by the Asian Coalition Housing Rights.

Fijian families that flock to the urban areas usually settle in vacant land within the town boundaries and face the lack of economic opportunities, poor housing conditions and poor sanitation.

The rural-urban movement has increased the gap between productive jobs available and increased social problems in the island nation.

The University of the South Pacific's Professor Biman Chand Prasad said earlier to the media that a large portion of the rural labor force sought jobs in the formal sector without formal education.

Most dropped out of school despite moving to towns with their families for education and better opportunities because their parents were unskilled and were not paid well.

"There has been a considerably large dropout from schools without appropriate employable skills leading to high rates of youth unemployment," he said, adding "recently, many young people are leaving, it is possible three out of five are skilled, which, means on average we could be losing about 3000 skilled people annually."

According to Professor Prasad, the migration rate had increased to an average of about 5000 after the 1987 coup on average about 100,000 people have left in the past 20 years.

"The total in 20 years would be 40,000 skilled people leaving our shores," he said, adding the implications for Fiji are serious and the shortage of skilled labor would continue.