Administration pursues workforce plan

The Fitial administration is pursuing a labor program initially proposed during former Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio’s third term in office.

Acting Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez has appointed Daniel H. Nielsen to head the implementation of the Workforce Management Improvement Plan, which Nielsen drafted about six years ago.

The workforce program was structured to place more resident workers in most management, blue and white collar, and office management positions, as well as some technical and semi-skilled positions, in the private sector.

Press secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said that the plan received funding from the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs in 2001 and was completed just as the Fitial administration came into office earlier this year. There was still over $100,000 left in the federal funds when Fitial took over.

According to Reyes, the workforce plan was developed by the Workforce Investment Agency, Department of Labor, Public School System and Northern Marianas College, with the help of the private sector.

“It was designed for these organizations—and others—to work together to develop seamless training, curriculum, courses, and classes together so that ‘students’ of various ages—whether in high school or college, could improved their skill—resulting in better pay and more benefits,” Reyes said in an email he wrote from Hawaii, where he had attended the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Island Business Opportunities Conference Nov. 13-14.

As implementation leader for the Workforce Management Improvement Plan, Nielsen is responsible for completing the expenditures of the line item funds as stated in the original plan, implementing the projects as outlined in the Objectives sections, and assisting organizations involved implement these activities within their normal hiring operational procedures, Reyes said.

When this is done, expectedly by December, an application for the plan’s second phase will be submitted to OIA for review.

Phase II will be the actual implementation of improved courses, classes, internship, work study training, and related activities involving private sector components and education oriented institutions of many kinds, Reyes said.

These will include WIA, Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, PSS and NMC graduates, college and university graduates who received government scholarship funds, graduating high school students, local residents seeking assistance from the Department of Labor’s Employment Services and Training Program, and others.

“A priority of this administration and the FMIP project will be to help local residents who have moved to the U.S. return to the CNMI, and to meet the employment priorities of private sector. Certainly one of the key priorities will be to employ both local residents at reasonable wages, and expand the business sectors,” Reyes said.