Your Trusted Partner for Recruitment in Samoa

To better fulfill your recruitment needs, we at Remote People are here to help you find top talent in Samoa more effectively than recruiting on your own. Our team understands the local language, customs, and the intricacies of the Samoans talent market, giving you a significant advantage in securing the right candidates.

We know where to advertise your job openings to ensure maximum exposure and attract the best talent. Additionally, we assist in designing competitive, locally-appropriate compensation packages that not only appeal to top candidates but also help you optimize costs. 

Get in touch with us to navigate Samoa’s recruitment landscape with confidence and ease.

Remote People supports clients in filling the positions that power their organizations as a top recruitment agency and Executive Search and headhunting service provider.

Our teams consult with you in depth to find out your hiring needs and define the ideal candidates you’re looking for to fill your vacancies. With that information in hand, we create a strategy to attract the best candidates in your industry.

With expert knowledge of the Samoan culture, language, and labor market, our professional recruiters know when and where to look for high-quality candidates. Since we also work in over 150 countries worldwide, they can find you top talent from around the world as well.

Our Employer of Record (EOR) services in Samoa can help you expand your local workforce in the country, even if you don’t own a registered entity. Instead, we hire your workers compliantly and manage their HR needs while they produce value for your organization.

Recruitment Services in Samoa

Headhunter in Samoa

The Independent State of Samoa, or Samoa for short, is a small island nation in the South Pacific. Since it has a small population of just 212,000 people, about the same as a mid-sized city in most other countries, few recruitment agencies work in this market. However, Remote People is one of the few that do, and our teams of expert recruiters use their professional skills and experience to find you the top performers who can fill your critical leadership positions.

We help you locate and attract quality candidates for your top management, VP, C-suite executive, and board member positions – the people who make the big decisions for your company’s future. To fill these positions appropriately, we need to understand your needs precisely. We then look for candidates with the right mix of hard skills, soft skills, leadership styles, and vision alignment that will make them fit perfectly into your organization. As a headhunter, we can reach out not only to active job seekers but also to passive candidates who are currently employed.

We maintain professional discretion as we search the world for the most skilled and experienced talent to fill your most important vacancies.

Recruiting Expats in Samoa

Because the population of Samoa is so small, you may find it difficult to find people with the right mix of skills and experience within its borders. Remote People works in more than 150 countries worldwide and has built up a talent pool of over 100,000 global professionals. Rather than confining your search to Samoa, we help you cast a wider net to find talent that can contribute positively to your organization with their cross-market knowledge and transformational experience. 

When you select expatriate candidates for your positions, we support you by helping them obtain the visas and employment permits they need to enter and work in Samoa. Our relocation services make it much easier for you to bring top talent into Samoa to supplement your local staff in-country.

Recruit in Samoa

Samoa offers a bilingual workforce fluent in Samoan and English, with talent in agriculture, tourism, fisheries, and public administration across a stable Pacific island nation.

We source pre-vetted candidates across industries, handling local recruitment practices and Samoan labour law requirements.

No local entity needed. Your team can start in days.

FIND TALENT

Overview of Samoa’s Workforce

Of Samoa’s population of 212,000 people, only a little over 57,000 are part of the formal labor force, according to the World Bank. Many other workers are involved in informal employment, especially in subsistence agriculture across the islands. The country has a relatively low unemployment rate of 4.55%, though youth unemployment is higher.

Agriculture is the main employment sector for informal workers, and has been employing a stable 30% of formal workers for around a decade. The country’s main commercial agricultural products include coconuts, fish, bananas, and cocoa.

Employment in the industrial sector has also been relatively consistent for over a decade. Around 14% of workers are employed in this sector, especially in the food processing (coconuts, fish), automotive, and energy industries.

The largest segment of employees is employed in services. Around 56% of workers in Samoa are employed in government services, tourism, telecommunications, and finance.

The main industries that are currently growing the fastest in Samoa include tourism, fishing, renewable energy production, and a new garment and textile industry. With the country’s economy back on track after a pandemic-period downturn, this growth has created extensive opportunities for employers and new jobs for workers as well.

No matter which industry you work in, Remote People can help you find employees with the skills and experience to best match your organization.

Overview of Samoa's Recruitment Industry

Samoa’s small population means that there aren’t many recruiters working in the country, and this can make recruitment more challenging. There is also a serious phenomenon to deal with. The migration of skilled workers from Samoa, especially to Australia and New Zealand, has created a skills shortage in many areas. While government programs are in place to target this shortage, there is still a significant gap in technological, digital, vocational, and leadership skills in the country.

On the other hand, the cost of labor in the country is still relatively low, as is the cost of living. Samoa’s per capita GDP is only $5,740 per year, and its minimum wage is roughly $1.77/hour. Combined with growing opportunities for business in the industrial and services sectors, working with Samoans can be very attractive to employers. 

Remote People’s local and international networks help to identify and attract top-quality talent to help build the success of your Samoan venture. 

Recruitment Season in Samoa

The fiscal year in Samoa runs from 1 July to 30 June, making the end of June a natural time for workers to look for new employment opportunities. University students graduate at the end of the academic year in May. This means that late spring is the best time for businesses to assess their hiring needs and start their recruitment programs.

Major Job Portals and Recruitment Platforms in Samoa

With its small market, Samoa doesn’t have a lot of online resources dedicated to targeted recruitment in the country. However, these sites are popular for job seekers in Samoa:

  • Samoa Public Service Commission: This site helps Samoan workers find employment across all departments in the public sector.
  • MyJobsSamoa: This new website lets employers post vacancies and search through job seekers’ resumes.

Employers also use popular social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (X) to introduce themselves and get the word out about their vacancies.

If employers can learn how local people use these online resources when looking for jobs, they’ll be far more successful when recruiting workers for positions in Samoa.

Samoa’s Graduate Pipeline

While giants like India and China each produce 10 million post-secondary graduates every year, Samoa’s small population results in much lower rates. Combined, Samoan institutions produce just over 1,000 graduates annually, while about another 700 finish specialized government-sponsored technical and vocational programs.

The main institutions in Samoa include the National University of Samoa (NUS) and the University of the South Pacific (USP), which operates a campus in Alafua. A handful of vocational and technical institutes and theological colleges also provide training and education to tertiary students.

Top Engineering Schools in Samoa

Labor Laws and Employment Regulations in Samoa

It’s crucial that you’re familiar with the local labor laws in Samoa if you want to recruit and hire workers compliantly. If you’re not, you may face serious fines and other penalties, or you can engage a professional recruiter to help keep you compliant.

Who Can Legally Hire in Samoa?

Hiring employees legally in Samoa requires a registered business entity, such as a:

  • Limited liability company (LLC)
  • Public limited company (PLC)
  • General and limited partnership

All of these types of entities can be entirely foreign-owned, except in a few restricted industries like traditional garments, retail, and public transport. 

If you don’t have an entity set up yet, or don’t wish to incorporate one, you can still hire local workers through a Samoa Employer of Record (EOR). This type of service provider can hire employees on your behalf and manage their HR needs for you over the long term.

Work Requirements for Employees

To be employed legally in Samoa, workers must:

  • Be at least 15 years old.
  • Be registered with the Samoa National Provident Fund (SNPF).
  • If foreign, hold a temporary resident permit and a foreign employee employment permit.

Employee Entitlements

Employers must provide their employees with these minimum conditions in Samoa:

Employment ConditionDetails
Workweek40 hours per week, including a 30-minute daily meal break
Overtime Pay1.5 times the normal wage for overtime work
Annual Leave10 days per year
Public Holidays12 days per year
Minimum Wage4.84 WST per hour (approx. 1.77 USD)

Benefits of Partnering with a Recruitment Agency in Samoa

While you can perform your recruitment function in-house in Samoa, many employers choose to partner with recruitment agencies like Remote People because of the competitive advantages they can provide, including:

Shorter Time to Hire

Our recruiters use their networks and advertising experience to help you fill vacancies in days to weeks, not months. 

Legal Compliance

Our knowledge of local labor laws helps us keep you compliant in all stages of recruitment and hiring.

Deep Market Knowledge

Remote People’s expert recruiters have intimate knowledge of Samoa’s labor landscape and know when and how to recruit the best candidates to suit your needs.

Extensive Professional Networks

Remote People is well-connected in Samoa and also works around the world in over 150 countries, enabling us to help you find top talent no matter where it’s located in the world.

Job Offer and Contract Support

Once you make your selections, we continue to support you and your candidates through the offer, negotiation, contract, and onboarding stages of recruitment.

How to Choose a Samoa Recruitment Agency

There are only a few recruitment agencies working in Samoa, but choosing the best one for your needs is still a challenge. To make your selection more efficiently, consider the following questions:

What’s the Agency’s Reputation?

Agencies with excellent online reviews and ratings have generally satisfied their clients’ needs by finding them top-quality candidates who fit their organizations well and stay with them long-term.

Does the Recruiter Have Extensive Experience?

While new agencies may offer useful technologies and competitive prices, more-established competitors have the experience to work effectively and compliantly with networks, candidates, and government authorities.

Will the Agency Meet Your Needs?

You’ll need to look for an agency that can provide all the services you require, including help with offers, contracts, onboarding, Executive Searches, and headhunting.

If you also need help hiring employees because you don’t own an entity in Samoa, you should consider working with a Samoa Employer of Record (EOR) that can hire employees and manage their HR concerns for you.

Are Their Fees Within Your Budget?

Once you set your recruitment budget, you can quickly eliminate competitors who can’t provide all the services you need within it.

Recruit Top Talent Across the Asia-Pacific Region with Our Recruitment Expertise

If you operate in a wider area than just Samoa, Remote People can help you extend your talent searches to the greater Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. Our professional teams support you to:

  • Locate top candidates from talent pools around the world.
  • Stay in compliance with local labor laws in all your recruitment and hiring activities.
  • Manage offers, negotiations, commitments, contracts, and onboarding after you’ve made your candidate selections.

We have teams of experienced recruiters all across APAC. When you partner with us, you can leverage our professional knowledge and skills to find the workers who’ll power your company’s future success.

Recruitment Coverage in Asia-Pacific
ArmeniaAustraliaBali
BangladeshBhutanBrunei
CambodiaChinaFiji
GeorgiaGrenadaGuam
Hong KongIndiaIndonesia
JapanKazakhstanKiribati
KyrgyzstanLaosMacau
MalaysiaMaldivesMarshall Islands
MicronesiaMyanmarNauru
NepalNew ZealandPakistan
PalauPapua New GuineaPhilippines
Pitcairn IslandSaint Kitts and NevisSaint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the GrenadinesSamoaSingapore
Solomon IslandsSouth KoreaSri Lanka
TaiwanThailandTimor-Leste
TongaTrinidad and TobagoTurkmenistan
TuvaluUzbekistanVanuatu
Vietnam  

Recruit Top Talent in Samoa with Remote People

Ready to expand in Samoa? Remote People can connect you with skilled local talent. Request a proposal from Remote People today to start your recruitment journey with the premier recruitment and Executive Search agency in Samoa. Contact us today to discuss your hiring needs and reach your recruitment objectives.

Frequently Asked Questions

We first assess our clients’ needs and build the candidate profiles they’re looking for. We then work through our international networks to locate international candidates who fit these profiles appropriately and reach out to them on behalf of our clients.

We use our entity in Samoa to hire workers on your behalf. This makes us responsible for compliance and HR functions, while you manage their daily work and schedules as their worksite employer.