Online ads could increase laborers

Change in requirement sought to save farmers time and money

A proposed change to how farms recruit workers could “chip around the edges of the labor shortage problem,” according to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed rule change would require employers seeking temporary workers to post job opportunities online, rather than in newspaper ads that reach a more limited audience.

“It will save farmers both time and money in how they advertise for local workers,” Steve Ammerman, a spokesman for the New York Farm Bureau, said. “Labor has been an ongoing challenge for New York farmers both in terms of availability and the cost.”

“This isn’t new for New York, but is getting worse,” Ammerman added.

The move to advertise to a wider audience of potential workers is part of the Trump administration’s broader regulatory reform of the H-2A visa program.

When farmers can’t find domestic workers to fill positions, they can turn to H-2A visa holders —foreign workers hired for temporary or seasonal agricultural work. The visa program is not applicable for year-round work, like on dairy farms, though.

“Using regulations like this is one way to modernize H-2A to reach more American workers,

while providing relief to farmers from one of the high costs of the program,” Perdue said in a statement.

Perdue, along with heads of the Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security, earlier this year pledged to streamline and simplify the

“overly bureaucratic” visa program, while protecting employment and wages for U.S. workers.

“Farmers compete for labor along with every other business, but it is becoming increasingly difficult finding local help who are willing to work on farms,” Ammerman said. “The labor shortage underscores the need for additional federal immigration reform in order for our state and country to produce the food needed to feed ourselves.”