Adding to worries about the upcoming tourist season driven by the slowing economy, the local hospitality industry is facing a likely shortage of seasonal workers.
In the past, in addition to the yearly national quota (66,000 in 2008) of temporary workers under the H-2B visa program, workers who had come to the country during one of the past three years were permitted to return. Due to the ongoing debate over immigration, however, those extra workers have not been granted the exemption to the quota that allowed this practice and thus cannot return. With the national quota long filled, companies that rely on temporary workers are looking at large problems.
Newport appears to be potentially hard hit, with hospitality businesses on the island dependent on the returning workers to maintain service levels.
The Newport Harbor Corp., owner and operator of six restaurants, a hotel, a catering company and an event center, has developed a major employment program involving workers from Jamaica. These employees, including line cooks, waiters, bus-people and housekeeping staff, have returned every summer for the past 10 years and then return home in October.
According to Newport Harbor CEO Paul O’Reilly, the visa program is vitally important to the hospitality industry. “Congress must understand the consequences of doing away with the [H-2B exemption] program. Eighty percent of our businesses will be impacted by it.”
The Jamaican workers have become integral to the success of the company’s business. There are two line cooks at the company’s Smokehouse restaurant on America’s Cup Avenue in Newport whom O’Reilly describes as “critical to the business” who are in jeopardy of not returning this season. One, named Everett, has been coming from Jamaica to work in Newport for more than 10 summers, and it his jerk-seasoning recipe that brings customers back time and again to the Smokehouse.
To those who believe the temporary workers represent a way for employers to avoid paying higher wages to domestic workers, Kristin Fahey, human resource manager of Newport Harbor, takes us through the process of hiring a worker who has an H-2B visa.
By law, employers must first advertise through the state and federal labor departments and hire U.S. workers for these positions; H-2B workers will be approved only if there remain openings after this domestic recruitment.
Prevailing wage must be paid to the H-2B workers. Fahey also said that because these workers are returning, they are employees with seniority subject to reviews and raises. When the costs of using H-2B workers are calculated, they surpass the costs of hiring locals to fills the jobs. As she puts it, “If we could fill these jobs without going through this process, we would!”
Why aren’t the locals filling these jobs? O’Reilly says that while there are more people looking for jobs these days, the seasonality of the positions held by the H-2B workers just do not fit the needs of domestic applicants – the jobs for the most part last from April through October.
As a result, arrangements will have to be made if Congress fails to renew the exemption and allow the returning workers to get back on the job. Keith Stokes of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce is organizing a job fair with the Rhode Island Hospitality & Tourism Association and NetWorkRI, to be held at the Community College of Rhode Island Newport campus on May 12. And the Newport Harbor Corp. has undertaken a recruiting campaign at New England ski resorts just ending their seasons as well as at resorts and culinary schools as far away as Florida. •
Dining Out with Bruce Newbury(bruce@brucenewbury.com) can be heard on TalkRadio 920 WHJJ-AM Fridays at 6 p.m. and Saturdays at noon.
