The Department of Labor is requesting an increase of over $200K for the upcoming fiscal year.
PNC’s Damen Michael has this story
DOL is requesting approximately $3,270,150. This request increased by approximately $297,950 from the last fiscal year due to increased personnel and operational expenditures.
DOL Director, Dave Dell’Isola, brought up that monies used by the Department are being utilized for various programs. Such as the most recent Job Fair held by the American Job Center, which, according to him, was a successful event.
Dell’isola said, ” Which we had 90 employers and over 200 people attending with 100s hired on the spot, everything we heard and all the feedback was very successful. I can tell you that 60 percent of participants were unemployed, 17 percent were looking for jobs with more hours, and 8 percent were identified were looking for a career change….”
The participants, according to DOL, were 60% high school graduates, 17% college graduates, and 13% were non-high school students.
Senator Joe San Agustin asked Dell’Isola if there were any updated figures regarding Guam’s unemployment rate and status.
To which Dell’isola responded that if six to seven thousand more unemployed members of the community find a job, Guam will return to pre-pandemic unemployment status.
He said, ” Our unemployment which is at 7.2 right now, has been… obviously going to be going down, and we hope to have the next unemployment report within a few weeks. We will wait and see..”
According to Dell’isola, the upcoming unemployment report is projected to decrease a few points. And added that employment within the tourism industry needs to grow due to its reopening.
Dell’isola said, ” right now, there’s a lot of jobs out there, and our people have their choice, and that’s why I did the job fair to kind of kick start the opportunity for participants to see what is out there.”
Reporting for the Pacific News Centre
I’m Damen Michael
