Summer job shutdown
Work visa shortage hurts seasonal businesses
In a typical summer, Alpine Amusement has a traveling staff of about 50 people.
The carnival operator crisscrosses Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, where workers set up, run and take down more than 20 rides every week from May to October.
This summer, Alpine has a spartan crew working long hours. What was once a sixhour setup now takes two days. The carnival doesn’t even put up half its rides because it doesn’t have the manpower.
The problem is a national visa shortage that’s hampering seasonal businesses.
“We refuse to fail, but it is taking a toll on all of us,” said Michelle Massie, who runs the business with her husband and father-in-law. “My husband and his main crew worked 78 hours last week. It’s not sustainable.”
The labor shortage is not for lack of trying. Massie usually relies on 42 foreign workers — mostly from South Africa and Mexico, she said. These work-
ers, alongside a handful of American employees, return summer after summer.
But this year, when the company applied for the visas to sponsor those workers, it received none of them.
That’s because those documents, known as H-2Bs, are limited to 66,000 per year across the country. The program allows seasonal employees working outside agriculture — mostly in fields such as housekeeping, landscaping and amusement parks — to stay in the country for a year.
In past years, returning workers such as those employed by Massie didn’t count against the cap. But last year, Congress didn’t reauthorize that exemption.
Alpine isn’t alone. Many small businesses in communities that rely on seasonal tourism are also affected. The state’s unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, making it tough to hire Americans who have more job options.
“If there’s an opportunity for a year-round job with similar responsibilities and the same pay, we are going to be the less desirable choice,” Massie said.
Businesses scramble for seasonal workers
The state’s restaurants are already struggling to fill openings, a problem that’s only exacerbated by the summer season, said Susan Quam of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association.
Employers say the high school and college students who used to take on these summer jobs now have other commitments, such as organized sports or summer internships.
The labor shortage is so severe, the Wisconsin Hotel & Lodging Association has created a task
force to deal with the issue, said Trisha Pugal, the group’s CEO and president.
Some resort areas, such as the Wisconsin Dells and Door County, have a workaround already in place: They have long hired international college students through the J-1 visa program, which is touted as a cultural exchange program.
But for small businesses that have primarily operated with H-2B workers, such as Sunnypoint Landscape in Egg Harbor, even a handful of vacant jobs could be financially devastating.
Lynn Zawojski, who has run Sunnypoint for 29 years with her husband, said the couple already have lost several contracts totaling tens of thousands of dollars this summer.
The couple normally employs about 15 people, including several nonAmericans who return yearly, she said. The applications for several visas she submitted in January went nowhere, leaving the Zawojskis scrambling for backup.
Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security said it would offer extra visas. Congress had authorized the agency to increase the number available for the 2017 fiscal year as part of the spending bill it passed in May.
Visas could be added soon
A department spokesperson told The Associated Press that the agency expects to start issuing the visas as soon as late July. The visas will be available to employers that demonstrate they will be significantly harmed if they cannot hire the temporary foreign workers, the AP reported.
Zawojski, reached by phone, said she hadn’t heard of the development. After all, even if she were to obtain more visas, the season will nearly be over by the time she pays the fees and the workers arrive, she said.
“Anyone that’s applying to this has a severe need,” she said.
The stall remains a point of frustration for Zawojski, who notes that H-2Bs are the same visas used by President Donald Trump to hire workers for his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.
In April, Trump visited Kenosha, targeting the H-1B program for skilled foreign workers. While his “Buy American, Hire American” executive order didn’t explicitly alter H-2Bs, employers have become increasingly sensitive to those who say H-2B workers displace Americans.
Employers must first make an effort to hire American workers. Zawojski said she’s advertised online, in newspapers and at schools to little avail.
“It’s a hard line of work,” Zawojski said of landscaping. “It’s tough to be (working) in backbreaking, hot weather. It’s not a glamorous job.”
Zawojski pushed back at critics who suggest that employers use the program to exploit foreign workers by offering low wages and poor working conditions. She said she provides her workers with housing and pays the federal prevailing wage.
Massie and Zawojski said they are waiting for an announcement on the program. Both women were on a conference call recently with the Department of Homeland Security, where they heard their problem echoed by shrimpers in the Gulf Coast, New England innkeepers and Alaskan salmon fisheries.
In the meantime, Massie takes out ads each week in the next town on the carnival’s schedule, hoping to hire new workers at each location. She cycles through innumerable background checks and does extra tax paperwork.
And she keeps in touch with her former employees, some of whom are still texting her, asking when they can return.