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Labor sees improved hiring for local workers
Labor Secretary Edith Deleon Guerrero said the Enforcement Division’s strict implementation of local and federal labor laws has improved the hiring of U.S. qualified workers in the private sector.
Gil San Nicolas is the division’s director.
“We’re enforcing the law and that results in the increase, especially for U.S. qualified workers. We want to make sure all qualified…would be employed,” she said. “There has to be enforcement in place and that is a good thing. It helped a lot in the decline in the unemployment rate.”
Latest data showed that the CNMI’s unemployment rate in 2014 was at 16.8 percent. This is 5.6 percentage points higher than the 11.2 percent posted more than five years ago in a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“[That is] the latest rate that [we] have and we are waiting for the release of the latest [household income and expenditure survey] from the CNMI Department of Commerce, which would provide us with a most current unemployment rate,” said Deleon Guerrero.
Guam has the lowest unemployment rate among U.S. territories on a list of nations compiled by cia.gov at 7.4 percent in 2014, down by one percentage point a year before. American Samoa, according to cia.gov, has the highest unemployment rate at 29.9 percent based on April 2011 figures. Puerto Rico is at 13.7 percent while the U.S. Virgin Islands is at 13 percent; both were collated in December 2014.
Deleon Guerrero said they are helping individuals look for jobs that they are most qualified dor, based on job vacancy announcements filed by employers.
Labor’s data showed that in 2015, 51 percent of the CNMI’s employees are qualified U.S. workers compared to foreign laborers at 49 percent. The numbers did not change from 2012 to 2013, with 54 percent for non-U.S. and 46 percent for local workers.
Construction and extraction jobs have the highest labor demand; the number of jobs for both positions is at 21,486. The ongoing construction of several public and private projects is one of the reasons for the high demand.
She said the law is clear that U.S. workers should be given priority. “At the same time they must be qualified for the job they are applying for. [Freely Associated States] citizens are the next priority.”
