NATIONAL INSURANCE CORPORATION
NOTICE : New C3 Form and Occupation Survey

Dear Employer

As part of a collaborative effort to provide employers, employees and the Nation with improved services, and more comprehensive labour market information, the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Finance/ Government Statistics Department, and the National Insurance would like to alert you to two new developments. Section A below provides details on the NEW C3 FORM, and Section B addresses the upcoming SURVEY OF OCCUPATIONAL DATA.

SECTION A

Commencing January 2004, the NIC will be sending out a new monthly C3 form to all employers. (Please see attached sample form). The objective is to receive more information about employment in St Lucia, pay more equitable benefits to claimants and bring our contribution system in line with our OECS sister organizations.

Seven new pieces of information will be required. They are highlighted in RED on the attached sample:

1. The payroll period for fortnightly/weekly paid staff eg. if your workweek starts on a Wednesday, your pay period for August 2003 may be 30/7/03 to 26/8/03

2. The maximum number of weeks within the payroll period. This can be between 4 and 6 for fortnightly/weekly paid staff.

3. The pay period, column 5 - this refers to the frequency of payment symbolized by MN - monthly , FO – fortnightly, WK – weekly, BM for bi-monthly (twice per month).

4. The Number of weeks each employee actually worked for the month (column 6).For fortnightly/weekly staff, the minimum is 0 and the maximum is 6. More specifically this is the number of weeks (including paid vacation) that the contribution represents. For monthly and bi-monthly staff this will normally be 4.33 weeks. The only exceptions occur when staff get unpaid vacation or are suspended without pay etc.
An employee will be considered to have worked for 1 week if she/he worked for at least one hour within the 7-day work-week.

5. The code that represents monthly gross wage/salary of each employee earning above
EC$5000 per month (column 10- see attached sheet)

6. The total gross wages/salaries for all staff for the month in question.

7. Occupation of employees recruited from January 2004 (column 9)

We seek your cooperation and request that you modify your Payroll software / systems to ensure that the above information could be provided.

You will receive your forms for use in January 2004 by early January 2004 .

SECTION B

In order to reduce the burden to you, we will embark upon a project to collect the occupational data of employees.

The occupation data (columns 8 and 9 of the new form) will be collected via a survey done in collaboration with the Central Statistical Office. The survey will commence on 22 September 2003 and will continue for several weeks. We hereby request your cooperation with the enumerators.

Following the survey, the NIC will print the NIC number, Employee name, occupation code, and occupation for each employee and send the relevant C3 forms to you the employer. You will be asked to provide the remaining information as listed in items 1 to 7 above, and then submit the completed form to the NIC.

You will be requested to write in the occupations of all new staff after having received the first list from the NIC. The occupation codes ( column 8 ) will be filled in by the NIC.

We encourage electronic submission of C3 forms.

In order to clarify any issues related to the new C3 form, we would like invite you (or your representative) to a workshop. This session will take place at the NIC conference room on the Fifth Floor of our Castries Waterfront Building, commencing at 10 a.m. on Thursday 9th October 2003.

Our staff in the customer service department will be happy to respond to any additional queries that you may have.

Thank you for your usual cooperation, assistance and support.

Director
29 / 8/ 03