NMI’s 2022 Economic Census kicks off

U.S. Census Bureau Economic Census assistant survey director Michael Sprung explains the importance of business participation in the 2022 Economic Census during a press briefing at the CNMI Department of Commerce yesterday afternoon. Also in the photo are U.S. Census Bureau Economic Census assistant survey director staff chief Bobby Nusz, left, and CNMI Department of Commerce Central Statistics Division director Justin H. Andrew. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)

Two visiting officials from the U.S. Census Bureau announced yesterday the kickoff of the 2022 Economic Census, which is a census of every business in the CNMI.

Economic Census assistant survey director staff chief Bobby Nusz and Economic Census assistant survey director Michael Sprung first swung by American Samoa and Guam before proceeding to Saipan Wednesday for the Economic Census of Island Areas. They are going back to Washington, D.C. today, Friday.

In an interview at the Department of Commerce yesterday afternoon, Nusz said the economic census is something that they do once every five years, or years that end in 2 and 7.

“It collects basic business statistics such as sales, payroll, employment, inventories, capital expenditures, and a lot of other industry-specific details like number of guest rooms for the hotel industry, square footage for retailers, things like that,” he said.

Nusz said it’s a mandatory survey and it’s due on March 15, 2023.

The U.S. Census Bureau is partnering with CNMI Department of Commerce Central Statistics Division to assist them with the data collection and to provide assistance to the respondents.

Sprung said the economic census is very important for the measurement of the economy on the islands.

Sprung said the last baseline picture they got from the CNMI was in 2017.

“This 2022 baseline comes after a number of major events, significant typhoon, as well as global pandemic,” he said.

Sprung said business participation is more essential than ever just to make sure that they get the correct numbers for where things are today in the economy on the islands.

CNMI Department of Commerce Central Statistics Division director Justin H. Andrew, who arranged the interview yesterday with the visiting U.S. Census officials, said their role is to partner with the those from the U.S. Census Bureau.

“And we do the follow up work for the businesses that don’t respond during the given timeframe and to get them to respond,” Andrew said.

Sprung said the assistance of Andrew and his office is essential to the success of the survey.

Sprung said they had to wait until the year 2022 is over to send out the forms for business to report the calendar year.

Nusz noted that CNMI has a very strong participation rate with the economic census.

Nusz assured that all the data they collect is confidential.

He said Andrew and his staff have all gone through the process to obtain the special sworn status to be able to work with the respondents and their data.

Sprung said the invitation letters have already been mailed out starting last Jan. 31, 2023, and most businesses should be getting the letters this week.

“The deadline is March 15. If the business is having difficulty for whatever reason meeting that deadline, once they log in they create their account and they can sign in and they can request for an extension,” Sprung said.

Nusz said the schedule to release the statistics will be in June 2024.

“It takes a while to collect everything and analyze it [and] prepare them for release,” Nusz said.

He said Andrew and his staff will eventually be doing more follow up later this summer with individual companies that have not yet responded to get them to get their responses.

Nusz said the economic census is extremely important as the statistics that they collect will be used as input for the federal government’s official gross domestic product estimates for the CNMI.

For stateside businesses, they do surveys monthly, quarterly, and annually so they have a lot of relevant current economic data on the mainland U.S. economy, Nunz said. For the U.S. territories, all they do is this economic census once every five years.

“So it is very important to get good statistics now so that the GDP estimates will be high quality estimates going forward the next five years,” he pointed out.

“We wouldn’t be able to have good quality GDP estimates going forward without a good quality economic census now,” Nusz said as he urged businesses to participate in the survey.