Changes to Pacific seasonal worker scheme

Employers hiring Pacific seasonal workers will no longer be subject to industry-specific caps, under a change by the federal government.

There are currently caps on how many seasonal workers can be hired for specific industries, including horticulture, cotton, accommodation, aquaculture and sugar cane.

Employment Minister Eric Abetz says the individual caps will be scrapped and an overall cap of 12,000 places across all of the sectors will now apply.

"The government has listened to community concerns and decided to make this common-sense change," the minister said in a statement on Friday.

The scheme will retain its demand-driven approach.

Participating employers must exhaust the local job market before recruiting foreign seasonal workers.

The program involves East Timor, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Fiji has been invited to join.