Don’t muddle the issue
THE main problem with the CNMI workforce is not “culture,” but arithmetic. There are not enough local workers for certain jobs involving construction, trades, hotel and restaurant, caregiving, healthcare, etc. — the very same jobs that are also in demand in the states and other economically developed countries with large populations, various training/apprenticeship programs and high wage rates.
Check the latest CNMI census. Consult previous GAO reports. Look at the annual high school and college graduation numbers. Typical is this year’s Saipan Southern High School senior exit survey results which indicated that 11 of the 168 graduates will attend a vocational/technical/trade school or sign up for an apprenticeship program. The vast majority said they are going to college.
Local residents, like their counterparts in the U.S., have a variety of career and employment choices here or anywhere else in America.
Do the math, to quote a former governor, who was bad at it.
As for the “negative reputation” of some local employees: we should also point out that there are many local workers employed in the private sector, which is required by law to 1) give U.S. qualified workers preferential hiring over non-citizens; and 2) have a workforce composed of 30% U.S. employees.
Let’s also take note that even if local individuals with a “negative reputation” are hired by the private sector, the CNMI would still lack hundreds if not thousands of workers for certain occupations.
Of course, some government officials (many of whom are long-time public sector employees) believe that through legislation they can dump barely qualified individuals on private companies — because that’s what they usually do in government. (See the percentage of the CNMI government’s annual budget allotted for personnel salaries and benefits.) But while the government spends (and overspends) other people’s money, businesses must earn and spend their own. Huge difference.
To recap: there is a (perennial) worker shortage in the CNMI, which is made up of small and remote islands with a small local population who can, if they so choose, move to another U.S. territory or to any of the 50 states of their nation.
The surefire remedy to this worker shortage — on top of relentless and never-ending training and apprentice programs — is to allow qualified legitimate businesses to hire qualified foreign workers under federal rules tailored to the historical, geographical and demographic realities of the CNMI. But that will require amending federal law which will involve extensive, effective and expensive lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.
Speaking of ‘culture’
WHAT about the government’s role in perpetuating the “culture” of dependency on the public sector and its extensive (and costly) array of redundant and duplicative departments, agencies, programs, offices and services?
What about the seemingly stubborn “culture” of economic incoherence (if not illiteracy) prevalent among government officials and politicians, many of whom believe that the private sector’s money is theirs for the taking?
What about the “culture” of passing budgets that do not meet revenue projections, and laws that cannot be or are not enforced or whose implementation creates even bigger problems?
Well?
