‘2005 alien hiring restriction unrealistic’

The Department of Public Health describes the 2005 sunset provision in hiring foreign workers “unrealistic” and the one-year restriction on employment contract “unreasonable.”

In a position paper submitted to the Legislature, Public Health Secretary James U. Hofschneider said that despite the CNMI’s best effort to recruit local residents, the department continues to need healthcare professionals from overseas.

“It has become evident that the 2005 restriction is unrealistic for DPH. The need to hire physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals from outside the CNMI and the U.S. will continue beyond this deadline,” said Hofschneider.

He said the education and development of sufficient local healthcare workers “must be viewed as a long-term program that will not be able to fill the Commonwealth’s increasing needs within the near future, despite the department’s best efforts.”

He said the economic slowdown prevents the department from hiring all the needed professionals from the U.S. mainland, “where salaries are significantly higher than the Commonwealth is able to pay at this time.”

Further, Hofschneider said that the existing one-year limitation on employment contracts of nonresident workers “has proven to be unreasonable and financially expensive to the department.”

The intent of the law, which is to increase the chances for resident workers to replace nonresidents at contract completion, “has no impact on the DPH positions.”

He said that positions are continuously offered to local residents but, “in most cases, there are no local healthcare professionals available.”

As a result of the one-year restriction, he said guest workers often leave after the contract, requiring the government to provide tickets and shipment for the repatriation as well for the new workers coming in.

“Depending on the size of the family, this unnecessary extra expense can significantly impact the department’s budget,” said the secretary.

Hofschneider said that these concerns—sunset provision and the one-year contract limitation—can be eliminated by amending the laws to allow the department to extend the alien hiring for at least 10 years and to exempt the department from the annual contract limitation.

These proposals are contained in House Bill 14-344, which is under discussion at the Senate.