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DOL, SHEFA take a look at the workforce realities of NMI
Labor Secretary Edith Deleon Guerrero points to CNMI data on the number of employed individuals in the CNMI. SHEFA board members acknowledge the need for continued partnership and workforce transition during their meeting Thursday. (Daisy Demapan)
During a SHEFA board meeting at the mayor’s office Thursday, DeLeon Guerrero stated that the latest data reveals that there are a total of 12,826 blank job categories. What this represents, she said, is either an issue with information intake or an outright omission of information.
“[U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] is fixing their system and we’ve been working very well together but so far only 1,744 foreign workers have known jobs. We don’t what the rest of them are doing,” she said. “How can we expect to provide education and job training if we have 12,826 foreign workers and we don’t know what they’re doing?”
She also shared with the board the gradual reduction of CW allocations from fiscal year 2011 to 2016.
USCIS allocated a total of 22,417 foreign worker, or CW, slots in fiscal year 2011. Five years later, fiscal year 2016 allows for only 12,999 CW allocations, which is inclusive of H2B workers who are mostly in the construction trade.
“We have 800-plus H2B workers on Saipan alone. There’s a great demand but a limited supply,” she said.
Board chair Oscar Babauta expressed his sentiments on the issue saying, “We need to provide employment that can be availed by our citizens.”
DeLeon Guerrero said the intent of the law is to provide employment and “not manpower services,” referring to provisions of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 that extended U.S. immigration laws to the Commonwealth. That same law phases out the CNMI’s foreign worker program by Dec. 31, 2019.
“Every employee is supposed to submit a quarterly listing of their employees to make sure they are in compliance. In regards to manpower agencies, essentially what’s happening is that they’re loaning the employment to other agencies but they cannot claim those workers on their listing because it’s only temporary,” DeLeon Guerrero said.
DeLeon Guerrero said the minimum threshold for businesses is 30 percent full-time workforce that includes U.S. citizens, residents, and Freely Associated States citizens.
For example she said, “BSI’s [Best Sunshine International. Ltd.] threshold is 65 percent, which is compliant with the casino agreement, but employers must transition foreign workers out with U.S. workers. Meeting the 30 percent does not stop there,” she said.
“When we are transforming the workforce system and the workforce of the CNMI, we also need to look at other state partners…in terms of the dependency syndrome that we are experiencing in the community, when we’re pushing for greater employment opportunities but we have a community that is much more excited about sitting at home and just living on social welfare programs…” she said.
The reality of the Nutrition Assistance Program, she said, is that it’s not supposed to make people dependent. “That’s the reason why the federal government talks about state responsibility to plant the seed that [welfare] is something to be used to assist the family, not something you retire on. Food stamps won’t buy you an education; it can only put food on the table. The point is, if you can qualify for [assistance] and work, then all the better for the family. But that’s not what’s happening and that’s why we need to work together to plant the seeds of self-sufficiency,” she said.
DeLeon Guerrero cited the 16.8 percent unemployment rate of the CNMI and the reality of NAP recipients foregoing employment for handouts, saying a total of 7,086 individuals were excused from work registration for various reasons.
Board members pointed out that some students return to the CNMI but aren’t working in their field.
“The public sector is very generous and that’s why we see people tipping that way instead of the private sector [despite their major]…so we have a huge gap,” DeLeon Guerrero said.
Board members also talked about succession planning such as Japan’s model of seniority. However, DeLeon Guerrero said the CNMI also lacks financial literacy.
“The investment in human capital is intangible,” she said, and recognized the ongoing initiatives of the Workforce Investment Agency, semi-annual job fairs, the re-visitation of NAP work registration requirements that are too lenient, and curriculum alignment at the Northern Marianas College, Northern Marianas Technical Institute, and Public School System to increase exposure of private sector industries.
