Newport. A cap on visas could short-
staff summer resorts.
Hotels, bed-and-breakfast inns and a host of other summer operations may be
short-staffed this summer after the federal government announced it would be
enforcing a cap on a seasonal visa program.
Dozens of businesses on Cape Cod found out on March 9 that they won’t be receiving the foreign workers they expected after the federal government announced it would be enforcing a cap on its H2-B seasonal worker program. In Rhode Island, where far fewer applications have been filed over the past 18 months, the results may be less visible, but could still be felt by small businesses struggling to fill the low-skilled job openings.
Wendy Northcross, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, said many of the group’s members in more remote locations have been among the hardest hit.
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Operating a bed-and-breakfast on the outer Cape or on Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard often means the costs of housing are high. Northcross said seasonal help – be it for two housekeepers or four dishwashers for a local diner – is hard to come by when the area’s senior population doesn’t have the stamina for the work and the season (now stretching from May into November) no longer fits college students’ breaks.
“These are positions that have been heavily advertised for,” Northcross said. “These employers have already had to prove that there is no one willing to take the job.”
In Rhode Island, where more than 60 job orders have been received at the state’s Department of Labor and Training, only a handful of businesses will be affected by the cap enforcement. While more and more employer applications have been filed in recent years, most of the 30-plus businesses (largely hotels) that requested workers have already filled the open positions.
Employees at the local Chambers in Newport, Narragansett and South Kingstown said they have yet to hear about any businesses preparing to cope with worker shortages created by the visa halt.
In Massachusetts, the state Office of Career Services was expecting to receive more than 5,500 foreign worker requests, with the bulk of those requests coming from the Cape and the islands. Northcross said that more than 70 local businesses on her Chamber’s e-mail list, requesting more than 300 workers, had already told the Chamber that their applications would be affected.
The Department of Labor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of State sponsor the federal H2-B seasonal worker program. According to the Department of State, in 2000, more than 45,000 of the seasonal visas were issued and that number had grown to more than 78,000 last year. When the number of visas jumped nearly 25 percent last year, the immigration service decided to enforce a cap of 66,000.
The H2-B visa allows employers who have petitioned the government to hire foreign workers to fill temporary and seasonal jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. The visas, which are mostly requested by the hospitality and landscaping industries, allow foreign workers to work for a petitioning employer up to 11 months.
Northcross said she believes the reason for the sudden cap enforcement is entangled in politics. She said the cap number seems to have been arrived at somewhat arbitrarily and that there is no geographical equity built into which applications were filled. Without any warning that the cap would be enforced, or an announcement of what the cap limit was, and because employers can’t request workers until 120 days before hiring, Northcross said larger operations and winter resorts were able to “gobble up” more than their fair share of the foreign workers.
“An innkeeper who can’t find that additional housekeeper for the busy season is going to be burned out by the end of the summer,” Northcross said. “Because of a fluke of counting days on a calendar, we’re left with the short end of the stick.”
Two bills have already passed through the U.S. Senate that would allow the cap to be lifted temporarily, although Northcross said the legislation is expected to have a much harder time making its way through the House of Representatives.
In early April, Northcross said the Cape Code Chamber is sponsoring an information session to help local businesses consider other visa programs, targeting foreign students, or to pool together their resources and re-advertise the jobs and contact outreach groups in Boston – although that opens up a further host of considerations including transportation and housing costs.
