CNMI garment salary the highest rate

Believe it or not, the CNMI garment factories’ wage rate of $3.05 per hour is the highest when compared with major supplier countries to the United States.

Statistics presented by Robert Jones, chair of the Strategic Economic Development Council, during a meeting at the Senate chamber yesterday showed that, of 26 countries or places, Saipan factories ranks first in terms of hourly salary, while Indonesia has the lowest hourly pay of 27 cents.

Costa Rica factories pay $2.70 per hour and Mexico pays $2.45.

Garment factories in seven countries pay their employees more than $1 per hour. These are Dominican Republic ($1.65), El Salvador ($1.58), Guatemala ($1.49), Honduras ($1.48), Malaysia ($1.41), South Africa ($1.38), and Mauritius ($1.38).

Meantime, eight countries pay more than 50 cents per hour. They include Colombia (.98), Nicaragua (.92), Thailand (.91), Jordan (.91), China-coastal (.88), Philippines (.76), and China-rural (.68).

The rest of the suppliers provide an hourly compensation of less than 50 cents.

They are Haiti (.49), Bangladesh (.39), India (.38), Kenya (.38), Madagascar (.33), and Indonesia (.27).

In his remarks, Jones said that Asian countries that pay their employees 30 cents to 75 cents an hour will ship most of their goods to the United States and European countries.

With the phase out of garment factories in the CNMI would go millions of CNMI government revenue tax dollars and thousands of local jobs, he said.

On the flip side, Jones said the projected reduction in population—with the departure of thousands of garment workers—would also mean less strain on the utility infrastructure.

“Less problems with remnants in the sewer, more power, water, sewer capacity for those of us who are left. Wouldn’t it be great if we could keep the tax revenues, keep most of the local jobs and reduce about half of the garment workers at the same time?” he asked.

Earlier, the Babauta administration said it projects a “break even” situation this fiscal year in view of the ongoing downsizing in the garment sector.

The government projects a loss of $6 million out of the $30 million in average annual user fee collection.

“We’d lose $6 million revenues in user fee, but you’ve got to remember that if people start to go home, the impact of all these workers on our infrastructure is such that it could be a break even situation. You would have fewer people in the hospital [and] fewer people using all the services,” said press secretary Peter A. Callaghan.

The garment sector employs over 15,000 workers.

Over 1,500 workers were displaced last month with the closure of two companies, Sako Corp. and La Mode, and downsizing within the industry.