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IPI employee count dips in Dec.
From a high of 1,870 employees in July 2017, Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC reported that staffing dropped to 1,606 in December 2017.
The Hong Kong-based company building the $507-million Imperial Pacific Resort in Garapan said the drop in employee count is partly due to U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services reducing the number of slots for foreign workers from 12,998 for fiscal year 2017 to 9,998 for fiscal year 2018—a reduction of 3,000 slots.
Bertha Deleon Guerrero, IPI Human Resource vice president, confirmed in an email to Saipan Tribune that majority of employees who left within the period were capped out from the CW program, which is officially called the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker Program.
In a report written with data collected last December 2017, IPI said that of the 1,606 employees in December 2017, there were 586 U.S. citizens, 91 U.S. permanent residents, 34 Freely Associated States employees, 19 H-1B permit holders, six E3 permit holders, 77 with employment authorization documents, and 793 CW permit holders.
The report also cited that IPI wasn’t in compliance with its mandate to have 65 percent of its workforce to be U.S. workers, as stated in the Casino License Agreement. U.S. citizens constitute 44 percent of the total IPI workforce.
During a four-month period from September 2017 to December 2017, December had the most number of promotions of staff at 48 promotions, while October 2017 had the most separations at 151. Separations include resigned and capped out employees. Notably, over the four-month period, November 2017 saw the largest number of new hires for the period, coming in at 35 while October 2017 had the second highest at 25.
IPI said that it conducted career talks at both the Northern Marianas College and the Northern Marianas Trades Institute, where two of seven students from NMTI successfully went through a 240-hour internship program at IPI.
