These days, the once busy department is devoid of clients and dimly lighted to cut costs.
There are no more lines at the cashier’s booths.
The department’s administrative hearing office, which used to be swamped with labor cases, rarely holds hearings.
No one’s complaining about their labor situation — at least to CNMI Labor.
Administrative orders are now a rarity.
And the department’s remaining personnel are afraid they, too, could be gone after Nov. 2011 — when the transition phase for the federalized immigration system begins.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to us,” a Labor employee who asked not be identified said.
The federal government is now in charge of local immigration and after Nov. 27, 2011, all the umbrella permits issued by Labor to foreign workers, students and investors will expire.
Labor employees are hoping they could be absorbed by other CNMI government agencies, citing the example of their counterparts in the Division of Immigration which ceased to exist when federal immigration law was extended to the islands on Nov. 28, 2009.
With the CNMI government struggling to pay its employees even after reducing their salaries, Labor employees are not so optimistic about their chances of staying on board.
But they are hoping the federal government will provide them with technical assistance so they can be re-employed in other sectors.
