Construction workers are in demand but in short supply in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
In a recent data collection done by the CNMI Department of Labor, there are less than a thousand construction workers in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cInternally, we sourced that from our workforce listing that is submitted by the companies,\u201d CNMI Labor Secretary Edith DeLeon Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
DOL said there are 839 construction workers on Saipan, 47 on Tinian, and 38 on Rota. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat is an indication that we\u2019re going to need more construction workers,\u201d DeLeon Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
She added that it is \u201cobvious\u201d that there is a shortage on island in terms of construction workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s obvious with the amount of projects that are going on. Imagine being a contractor, you have, like, 10 projects on your hands. So how do you split your workers?\u201d DeLeon Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat tells us that there is a great demand for construction workers in the market right now because of the numerous construction projects that are going on, for example, the Best Sunshine project, and all the other projects that are coming up,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
In the coming years, about 15,000 rooms are projected to be built in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Best Sunshine International, Ltd. alone said it would need about 2,000 workers for the construction and completion of the upcoming Grand Mariana Casino & Hotel Resort in Garapan.<\/p>\n
Aside from new constructions, many homes and establishments are still in need of rebuilding after the destruction of Typhoon Soudelor.<\/p>\n
According to DeLeon Guerrero they will use the data to build evidence for the Covenant Sectiion 902 talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will use that number to build the evidence also for the 902 conversations because obviously the employers are petitioning for more employees. We need to provide the data,\u201d DeLeon Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
High rates for workers<\/strong><\/p>\n Because of the high demand for workers in the construction industry, many are jacking up their per hour rates rates to supply workers.<\/p>\n \u201cI get a lot of calls from other contractors expressing concern why are these construction workers charging so much beyond the minimum wage and so forth and I said, well it\u2019s a matter of supply and demand,\u201d DeLeon Guerrero said.<\/p>\n She added that the government can\u2019t do anything about the high rates of construction workers on island. The DOL will come in play only when the rates for workers go below the state minimum wage. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no restriction there as a business to up the charges. You\u2019re in need of service, so therefore they can call the shots in terms of how much the contract will cost you,\u201d DeLeon Guerrero said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Construction workers are in demand but in short supply in the CNMI. In a recent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[1707,26,9234,6333],"class_list":["post-219051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-best-sunshine-international","tag-cnmi","tag-covenant-sectiion","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}