FOLLOWING a presentation by Northern Marianas College to the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, Saipan Sen. Edith Deleon Guerrero and Precinct 3 Rep. Denita Yangetmai on Wednesday said they are confident that their colleagues will support an apprenticeship program.
“I think there’s no question that across the entire CNMI, whether we’re talking about the Legislature, or any branch of government, or any department, everybody is in support of improving and increasing the workforce participation of the CNMI population, including students that are coming into the workplace in our community — so absolutely, there is a great support for apprenticeship,” said Deleon Guerrero, a former CNMI Labor secretary and Workforce Investment Agency executive director.
“We are very confident that the Legislature will work [on] finding money to support the [apprenticeship] program moving forward,” she added. “Apprentices are needed across the country, including the CNMI. We have a lot of federal programs to improve workforce training and education, and apprenticeship…is highly supported by the U.S. Department of Labor.”
Yangetmai, for her part, said she believes the House will support the initiative as well.
“They will support it 100%,” she added.
In a virtual poll conducted by the NMC presenters during the Saipan Chamber of Commerce general membership meeting on Wednesday, a majority of individuals present for the meeting said that they would like to see an incentive to increase the education tax credit to $10,000 from $5,000.
Of the 45 total votes cast in the poll, 19 were in favor of this incentive; 14 supported allocating a percentage of the CNMI-Only Worker, or CW, Fund directly to the apprenticeship program; and 12 said the education tax credit law should be amended.
No one was in favor of the fourth option: a 10 to 1 apprenticeship ratio in which there would be one apprentice for every 10 foreign workers in a CNMI business.
Yangetmai said she would not support this option because the CNMI needs more U.S. workers to start learning skills instead of hiring workers from outside the Commonwealth.
According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report on CNMI workforce trends and wage distribution, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security approved about 11,600 CNMI-Only Transitional Worker, or CW-1, foreign worker permits for 2019, but about 5,400 only in 2021, dropping over 60% from a high of 13,685 in Fiscal Year 2017.
