Prevailing wage survey report expected to be released today

The Department of Commerce is expected to release today the findings of the prevailing wage survey that they have been conducting since early this year.

Commerce Secretary Mark Rabauliman, together with the department’s Central Statistics Division director Alfonsis Sound, presented the report to Gov. Eloy S. Inos at his office yesterday.

According to Rabauliman, the meeting with the governor “went very well.”

“With the support of the administration and funding source from the Office of Insular Affairs we want to give them thanks and we really appreciate the governor for his time,” Rabauliman said.

“We presented it in a fashion where we hit some of the points that he was curious about,” he added.

“The governor is pleased that finally we are able to get this out,” Press Secretary Ivan Blanco said.

Rabauliman added that they had discussions with the governor with regards to the technical side and making the survey better in terms of capturing data.

“He had a lot of good ideas but it’s more of working towards making [the survey] more efficient,” Rabauliman told Saipan Tribune.

Sound added that he will also be meeting with the Department of Labor as they are partners in conducting the survey.

Minor revisions

Commerce officials declined to disclose yet the findings of the survey as they wanted to finalize the whole report. Some minor revisions are needed but the data gathered in the survey are all complete.

Showing initial pages of the report to Saipan Tribune, the report is comprised of four sections including data on occupation, educational attainment, and hourly wages in the CNMI.

“Without divulging too much, I can almost safely say that it’s almost comparable to 2011. No real deviation from there,” Rabauliman said.

Sound noted that the instrument that was used in 2011 was also used in the latest survey.

However, Blanco noted that unlike the 2011 survey, which included all the businesses in the CNMI, the 2014 survey only included all the businesses on Tinian and Rota and a random selection of companies for Saipan.

He also said that comparisons from the 2011 and 2014 data were not included in the latest report.

“What we expect is that all the occupations that will be reflected in this report were [those] that were reflected in the 2011 report,” Blanco said.

Important for the business community

“What’s most important is the businesses will be able get updated information and then use that when they hire new workers,” he added

The prevailing wage survey is important to CNMI businesses when hiring workers under the H1 visa category.

“They need the prevailing wage survey to hire H1 visa,” Sound said.

Blanco said that the survey is awaited for by many in the industry.

“I know that businesses, the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, has been calling for this,” Blanco said, “I think all the businesses will be happy to have it,” he added.

The wage survey was started on January. The initial part of the survey, which was data gathering, was completed sometime in April and was then followed by data analysis.