Prevailing wage survey is now 88 pct. complete

A prevailing wage survey in the Commonwealth is now 88 percent complete.

In a presentation, Alfonsis Sound, director of the Department of Commerce Central Statistics Division, said the March deadline can still be met.

“If not, we might extend to April,” Sound said, adding that the survey continues using traditional survey forms as well as online questionnaires.

Sound said the deadline is still manageable considering that the grant time line is from July 2014 to Sept. 30, 2016.

However, he emphasized that the current deadline of March or April is only for data collection. There will be another time line for the data analysis part of the survey, he said.

The U.S. Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs is funding the prevailing wage and workforce assessment study.

Sound earlier confirmed that the wage survey was started on Jan. 12, which the Central Statistics Division is spearheading.

The prevailing wage survey is needed to enable local businesses to successfully petition H1 visas for their employees, according to the Department of Commerce.

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

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 H1 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 H1 workers is for the prevailing wage and workforce assessment study to be conducted every two years as required by the federal government.