The average number of vacant positions is 542 every month. These should be offered to locals, Kaipat said.
This month, there will be 847 vacancies for jobs previously held by guest workers, Labor said.
In Jan. 2011, the figure is 726; in February, 667; March, 706; April, 710; May, 698; June, 348; July, 292; August, 259; September, 285; October, 383; and November, 589.
These positions include the jobs of 606 house maids.
The other positions are for accountants, 357; maintenance and general repair staff, 345; general and operation managers, 330; janitors, 237; waiters and waitresses, 188; supervisors and office administrative staff, 175; restaurant cooks, 164; chefs and head cooks, 151; nurses, 143; laborers and farm workers, 127; masons, 116; and massage therapists, 94.
According to Labor, of the 6,510 jobs, 1,904 require only a high school diploma and up to a few months of training.
2,237 jobs require an associate degree and one to two years training and experience.
1,033 jobs require a four-year bachelor’s degree and several years of experience and only 77 require a master’s degree, a Ph.D, an M.D. or law degree and adequate experience and training.
Kaipat acknowledged that the economy “has been contracting” and some employers who will have to let go of their guest workers may shut down these positions.
She estimates that 20 percent of the 6,510 jobs have already “disappeared.”
Some employers, she added, also refuse to honestly declare job vacancies.
“Some employers will cheat by not advertising the positions at the end of their foreign workers’ contracts,” she said.
So the number of jobs that will actually be available for locals may be lower.
Vice Speaker Felicidad T. Ogumoro, Covenant-Saipan, said there is an urgency to train locals for jobs currently held by nonresidents.
“We are trying to see where everybody is now in terms of developing a skilled local labor force. We will take a look at the jobs that are immediately needed to make sure that we are together in this effort so that we understand the priorities before we can resolve critical manpower needs,” she said.
The bottom-line, she added, is to make sure that U.S. citizens are the priority for any job vacancy, and to be able to do that, “we need to train them well.”
Northern Marianas College community development director Dave Attao said NMC can help train locals for private sector jobs.
Aside from Labor and NMC, the other members of the task force are the Workforce Investment Agency, the Public School System, the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance program, the CNMI Scholarship Office and the Northern Marianas Trades Institute.
