In an interview, Central Statistics Division Director Ivan Blanco said the enumerators who are preparing the Prevailing Wages and Workforce Assessment Study are still out in the field but they are expected to be done with everything in February.
Press Secretary Angel A. Demapan said the study is expected to come up with a more complete data because it will include all the jobs available in the CNMI.
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce’s prevailing wage study which was approved by U.S. Department of Labor did not include work assessment and had missing data regarding job positions, he added.
Blanco said the survey — for which the Department Commerce spent $15,000 in local funds — started in October.
The results will go to Bureau of Labor Statistics for review and approval. It then goes to the CNMI Department of Labor which will provide businesses with rates that will be used to determine the salaries of highly skilled employees like engineers.
Demapan said until the chamber of commerce’s effort recently, the CNMI did not have prevailing wage information. The study, he said, will help the commonwealth come up with a prevailing wage, distinct from that of the states and of other insular areas so local businesses can use it to properly pay their employees.
The administration lauded the over 2,000 businesses that participated in the study.
In their joint statement, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, and acting Commerce Secretary Sixto Igisomar appreciated the members of the business community who have completed the questionnaires while in the middle of meeting the deadline for filing the transitional workers petitions for their nonresident workers.
They said the study “will also capture important information on the demographics of the labor force including, but not limited to, employee skills, citizenship, and ethnicity as of Oct. 2011.”
The results of the study will be made available by the Department of Labor while the workforce assessment will be made available through publication and through the Commerce’s website at www.commerce.gov.mp
Fitial and Inos said they continue to encourage the remaining businesses on Saipan, Rota, and Tinian to complete the questionnaires and return them to the enumerators.
If there is any question or comment, direct it to Ivan Blanco via email: [email protected] or call him at 664-3045/3025/3023.
