Hong Kong-listed Imperial Pacific International (IPI) is struggling to meet its US worker quota for completion of its Saipan IR, Imperial Pacific Resort, as the United States prepares to reduce the number of temporary CW-1 visas it issues to citizens to work in the CNMI.
According to documents lodged by IPI’s VP of Human Resources Bertha Leon Guerrero to the Commonwealth Casino Commission, the company had 1,468 active employees as of April 2018 of which 44% were US citizens. Under IPI’s casino license agreement, 65% of all employees must be US citizens.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services is offering just 4,999 foreign worker slots to the CNMI next year, considerably fewer than the number of applications it has received, with successful candidates decided by lottery. There has also been talk that the program could be shut down completely after 2019.
According to Leon Guerrero, one of the biggest problems for IPI has been keeping the foreign workers it already has due to uncertainty over their futures.
“It’s hard for them to plan their future when every year they are not sure if they are going to get renewed or do not know what’s going to happen. A lot of them were just exhausted from that uncertainty – quite a few of them have already left,” Guerrero was reported as saying by local media. “For the ones that have resigned willingly, the majority of their concerns is just the uncertainty of the CW1 program.”
As reported by Inside Asian Gaming last month, IPI is set to request a further extension to the deadline Imperial Pacific Resort following a series of controversies surrounding the use of 2,000 illegal workers by its former contractors MCC, Beleida and Gold Mantis.
The company subsequently hired Pacific Rim to help repopulate its workforce but progress has been slower than expected. Under IPI’s Casino License Agreement, Imperial Pacific Resort must complete a minimum of 329 hotel rooms, 14,140 square meters of gaming area and other elements by no later than 31 August 2018.
Addressing the CC this week, Leon Guerrero said that, “If we don’t have enough staffing and if we can’t open 10 tables, then we only open seven. It’s a lot of trying to make sure that we continue our operations based on what we have.”
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