Now, Li Yuen said he can barely send $100 a month “because everything went up” — house rent, gasoline, food, clothing, utility — except his income.
“Few people use the taxis nowadays, even on weekends, unlike before when garment factories were still operational,” he said.
Jung Ji, another taxi driver from China who has been plying his trade for 10 years now, said he rarely sends money to his parents.
“Before I used to send money, but now very rarely — only on Christmas and sometimes not even on Christmas,” Jung Ji said.
Denise, a food staffer at one of the restaurants in Garapan, said she used to send $150 or more every payday to her parents in the Philippines, but their working hours have been reduced from 80 to 72 hours per payday.
When the economy was not that bad, Denise said they often worked overtime and customers were generous with “tips.”
Glenda, a sales clerk at a souvenir shop, said she used to send almost 60 percent of her salary to the Philippines to support her mother and her son, but when the economy plummeted, she had to cut her expenses to be able to send money home.
Glenda said sometimes, her employer would tell her to close shop early or open late to save on utility costs. Glenda said souvenir shops were among the hardest hit by the economic crunch, especially when flights from Japan were pulled out and reduced.
Remittances, mostly sent by foreign workers in the CNMI to their home countries, have been steadily declining for the past six years based on the reports from the Department of Commerce’s banking division.
In 2005, remittances reached $112.6 million. It went down to $102.2 million in 2006, posting a 9.2 percent decline. It went down again by 8.4 percent or $93.6 million in 2007. In 2008, it dropped to $76.8 or by 18 percent. Last year, it was down by 15.7 percent— $64.7 million.
In 2008, the banking division said there were 17 remittance centers in the CNMI. The most popular were Western Union, LBC Mabuhay, Rustan’s Foreign Exchange, PNB Corp. and Apex Remittance.
Since 2004, many foreign workers have left and gone back to their home countries, or headed to “greener pastures.”
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