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HAGATNA—Guam
is expected to be further flooded with workers from the
Philippines in the next few years once the US work-visa
cap for Guam and the Commonwealth the Northern Marianas
Islands (CNMI) is temporarily lifted, according to David
Cohen, former deputy assistant secretary of the
Department of the Interior.
S. 2739,
passed by the US Senate on April 10 and awaiting
President Bush’s signature, contains a provision that
exempts
Guam and the CNMI from the nationwide quota on all H visas
through the end of 2014.
The
legislation is expected to ease the labor shortage and
boost the military buildup on Guam.
The
military expansion plan for Guam—the largest US
troop-realignment project of its kind since the end of
the Cold War—would require between 12,000 and 20,000
workers to build a new military base, military housing
and utilities from 2010 through 2014.
The
nationwide annual cap on H-2B visas is currently set at
66,000.
“Without
the cap exemption, it would be impossible for a small
territory such as Guam to utilize such a large share of
the entire nation’s allocation of temporary
nonagricultural workers,” Cohen said.
“The
legislation….would help ensure that sufficient skilled
and unskilled labor is available for Guam’s planned
military buildup and could open up numerous business
opportunities in both Guam and the Northern Marianas,”
said Cohen, who drafted the original version of the bill
which mainly targeted the federalization of the CNMI.
Importing large numbers of workers is necessary due to
the very limited number of qualified workers on
Guam, and because
of the difficulty of attracting large numbers of US
workers cost-effectively to a territory that is over
6,000 miles away from the closest point on the
US
mainland, Cohen said.
“Guam,
which bills itself as ‘America in Asia,’ is
approximately three hours from Manila by plane, and is
expected to draw most of the workers needed for the
buildup from the Philippines because of its large, well
trained, English-speaking work force,” Cohen writes in
an article posted on the website of Davis Wright
Tremaine LLP, at which he is now a partner.
Foreign
workers will pick up the thousands of jobs to be
generated by the relocation of 8,000 Marines from
Okinawa.
“While
the H cap exemption would almost certainly result in an
influx of workers from the Philippines, it would also
likely attract talent from other countries,” Cohen said.
Japan
would be another potential source of manpower. The
Japanese government has pledged to subsidize 60 percent
of the funding for the troops relocation to
Guam.
Japanese
companies are expected to get a significant amount of
business from the $15-billion military-relocation
program.
Cohen
explained that while the cap exemption for H-2B visas
has been the principal focus of Department of Defense
planners, the exemption would also apply to H-1B visas
for professional or specialty workers, including
engineers, architects, computer experts, health care
professionals, professors and teachers, scientists,
accountants, financial analysts and many other types of
professionals.
Under
the bill, the visa-cap exemption would go into effect
“on the first day of the first month beginning one full
year after the date of enactment” and expire on December
31, 2014. |
