Commerce completes prevailing wage survey

The Department of Commerce has completed the initial phase of the prevailing wage survey in the Commonwealth.

According to Alfonsis Sound, director of the department’s Central Statistic Division, the survey garnered a 97-percent response rate from business respondents on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.

“This response rate is enough for us to complete the data collection,” Sound said.

The next phase of the survey, which is data analysis, will now continue throughout April. “By May, we can come up with the figures,” he said, referring to the actual prevailing wage rate.

The survey, which was funded by the U.S. Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs, follows a time frame from July 2014 to Sept. 30, 2016.

“The deadline is still manageable,” Sound earlier said.

In March, the department reported a completion rate of 88 percent, as field survey teams continue using traditional survey forms as well as online questionnaires.

The wage survey was started on Jan. 12.

The prevailing wage survey is needed to enable local businesses to successfully petition H-1 visas for their employees.

Among the questions that were asked in the survey relate to job descriptions, the going rate for that job, and the type of benefits received by the employee of that certain job.

Business impact

Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Alex Sablan said that, unlike in 2013 when both the Chamber and Commerce conducted two separate surveys, the island’s biggest business organization this time would be depending on the government to do the prevailing wage and workforce assessment study by itself.

He said the CNMI developing its own prevailing wage study is important because using the prevailing wage in Guam “is unfair and detrimental to the local economy.”

“The wages for an H-1 employee in the CNMI is segued to Guam’s prevailing wage, which is much, much higher. Our economy is different than Guam and the wage scale is different regardless of the situation. We have a different economy and we need to determine what scale we have so companies won’t inadvertently be impacted here with a scale that has no relevance,” the executive said.

Sablan said the only way the CNMI can have access to more H-1 workers is for the prevailing wage and workforce assessment study to be conducted every two years as required by the federal government.