Chamber president Doug Brennan yesterday said the response has been very good but a lot of businesses have asked for some additional time.
“In an effort to be fair and impartial as possible, we have arranged to extend the submission deadline to Sept. 16,” Brennan said.
He said they would like more businesses to participate.
“The more responses we can get from businesses, the better it is for us to determine a prevailing wage for the CNMI and we don’t have to use the existing high prevailing wage rates used by Guam, Hawaii and the mainland which is unfair for us here considering our current economic situation,” Brennan added.
Brennan said the chamber wants to thank the CNMI government for its input. The chamber earlier urged the government agencies to participate in the survey.
“Information from the government was essential to the success of this survey and its eventual wage determinations,” Brennan said.
Brennan is again urging businesses that haven’t submitted their survey forms to do so in the next week or so.
He said this is needed by CNMI employers to support their applications for U.S. work visas for their foreign employees
“If you are not a member and still want to participate, please give us a call at the chamber office. We will get the survey information out to you as quickly as possible,” Brennan said.
The chamber started distributing and sending Prevailing Wage Survey questionnaires to businesses through calls and emails last month.
Participating businesses will be given copyrighted copies of the survey results at no cost.
For more information, call 233-7150/233-7152, or email coordinator@saipanchamber.com.{jcomments off}
