Practical Employee Solutions Director of Operations Veronica Strickland and a team of officials representing her company and Starwood Hotels — who supply workers to Westin, Sheraton and St. Regis hotels throughout the U.S. — said at the weekend that they are set to bring to the U.S. a second “pilot group” of about 70 Marshall Islanders starting in January. The U.S.-based team spent four days in Majuro interviewing hundreds of prospective workers, returning to the U.S. at the weekend.
Encouraged by the performance of a first group of Marshall Islands workers hired in June, Strickland said her company will place another 70 Marshall Islanders into various entry-level hotel jobs. Seventy workers were first recruited and brought to the U.S. in June.
But Marshall Islands workers remain “an unproven option” for U.S. hotels so future jobs depend totally on how well the current Marshall Islands group works out, Strickland said. Among the challenges is that many Marshall Islanders lining up for job interviews have little job experience and poor English skills. Strickland’s local agent Russell Langrine said he works with prospective employees for many months before they leave, counseling them on what to expect in the U.S. and how to navigate problems that may develop in a new environment.
For American employers, the fact that Marshall Islanders don’t need visas to enter the U.S. is a big advantage because of the 66,000 annual cap on H2B visas for temporary foreign workers. But the current program also requires hotels to front one-way airfares that cost at least $1,500. For the first group, it cost more than $75,000 in airfares. “That’s a huge investment on a pilot program for the hotels,” Strickland said.
The Marshall Islands is a former Trust Territory of the United Nations administered by the United States. “Compacts of Free Association” with the U.S. that ended the Trust Territory status for the Marshall Islands and two of its neighbors, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia, include a visa-free entry provision, allowing islanders to easily enter the U.S. to live, work and study. An estimated 20,000 Marshall Islanders out of a total population of about 75,000 now live in the U.S.
“I hope the program will develop,” Strickland said, adding that there is a big need for foreign workers in U.S. hotels. “It all depends on the success of the people who go in these first groups. If just one or two don’t work out, it’ll be a problem.”
Despite some teething problems with the first group, things have gone well, she said. Strickland said she found a small group of Marshall Islanders, whose islands are barely a meter above sea level, had trouble adapting to the environment in 10,000-foot elevation Vail, Colorado, a major snow skiing resort. “We moved them to at hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi and they are now doing fine,” she said.
