The same with looking for employees or a job. An employer would look for the best applicant who is able and capable of doing the task for that position. An applicant would look for a good and reasonable salary as well as job schedule, and an employer who would pay for his service.
Now let’s look at our situation with jobs for U.S. citizens here in the CNMI.
The employers are looking for applicants that would replace those who are going home. They are also sorting out who can stay and who has to go, and most importantly, financially, how much can they afford to pay.
WIA, OVR, and Employment Services are also looking for local applicants who need help in finding a job, and at the same time sorting out who need training, who can train, who need to go to school or just a job to make a living.
The lawmakers passed a bill that requires employers to prioritize local applicants, which I think needs more revisions to match the availability of the products and how soon can we produce these products.
NMC is struggling to get accredited and the regents along with the new president have yet to inform us of the solution to have it accredited again.
The major issue is our government is getting broke, and the lawmakers haven’t found the solution toward recovery. They also have not addressed the high cost of utilities.
I notice, too, that there are some locals who don’t have computer skills so they can access announcements online. Is there a program or agency people can go to for assistance?
In your opinion, what do you think would be the solution to the above situation, with very little time and money left, with so much to fix?
As an employer, would you hire a local and a trainer? As an agency, how would you sell your product to an employer? As lawmakers what would you do besides enforcing the hiring of locals?
And as an educator, what would you do to attract students to attend classes at NMC?
For me, before it’s too late, I would conduct a survey among applicants and employers to find out what they need and from there I would find it and offer it to them.
As an employer I would look for a qualified applicant with the best credentials and use NMC, WIA, OVR and Employment Services to create programs for job training and education needed for the position that I’m looking for.
As an agency, I would help applicants find the training they need for the job they choose and set up programs that would attract employers to hire them.
As a lawmaker, instead of just prioritizing the hiring of locals, I would also conduct a survey to find out what are the barriers in hiring locals. I will also revise all government wages and qualification requirements to match federal standards.
The problems with our government system is that many locals have work ethics problems, are not punctual and are spoiled with the high salary the government is paying them.
Those who land a job in the private sector either quit or are habitually absent and this affects an employer’s business.
As an NMC official, with the present situation, I would look into my employees first and sort them out, who need training and education or who should be “released.” Because if for so many years you’ve been working for the college and no improvement has been made, then that means it’s time to change the old for the new. I would hire new instructors, especially those from U.S. universities to help improve NMC. I would tell the current personnel to shape up or be replaced. I would also create a support system to help me improve my services and my products.
And lastly, since the government is getting broke, I think it’s only fair that they, too, need to sort out and get rid of useless employees. It’s either that or get totally broke.
And as for CUC, with the high cost of utilities, I think it’s time to sell and privatize it. We might be better off that way. Who knows we might find something better than what we have now.
To high school students, my advice is find a job in the private sector where you can actually get real training and real credentials. When you’re hired, look for good skills to learn, and talk about the good of others, rather than judging their performance and badmouthing them. Because when you judge and badmouth others, this behavior will bounce back to you, and you will become an enemy of your co-workers and lose their trust, friendship, support and maybe your job too. When you look for good things to learn from others and share it with everyone, you gain trust, friendship, support and promote your credentials.
Yes, in the government you get higher pay but poor training. Not only that, even if you don’t want to, many co-workers have negative influences that are unnoticeable.
Do you get what I‘m trying to say? Those who are working in the private sector learn skills and save their money because if they don’t work they don’t get paid. Those in the government get higher pay, have not much to learn, have few skills and lots of bosses who need to be trained themselves. Plus, the consequences of bad performance in the private sector are not tolerated like that in the government. The higher the salary you get the more responsibilities you have, unlike in the government.
Remember: when you have lot of money you do not worry about overspending, but when you have very little, you’re very cautious when spending your hard-earned money.
There may be better suggestions and hopefully someone will share them.
So what do you think? I challenge all of you critics to make positive suggestions, and instead of identifying the weaknesses of others, can you identify their strengths? Don’t forget I’m from here and I know every negative behavior there is to know, but what I don’t know are the positive behaviors that I wish to know.
Peace to all. God always answers my prayers, plus it is written to seek first the kingdom of God. Maybe some of you are too good already that you don’t need His guidance anymore, but I do, every day of my life, and I cherish every moment of it. He also said do not judge others, for you too will be judged. God bless us.
WINNIE ATALIG
San Jose, Tinian
