Landscapers look to the workforce next door
Limitations of federal H-2B visa system help spur creation of a national apprenticeship program for struggling industry
For years, spring brought a wave of projects for landscapers in Pittsburgh and around the country — along with some anxiety.
Order books filled up for creative installations meant to brighten homes and offices with lawn treatments, flower beds, water features and stone walls. The key to getting all that work done on time hinged on a roster of seasonal foreign workers authorized by U.S. temporary work visas.
This year, the landscape industry — which has heavily lobbied Congress to expand the U.S. visa system amid labor shortages that forced at least one Pittsburgh-area business to close last year — is taking a different approach: trying to build a local workforce once and for all.
Launching the country’s first landscaping apprenticeship program, landscape companies are taking a page from the construction industry, which has built a reliable workforce despite the job’s long hours, physical demands, and seasonal ups and downs.
Apprenticeships, which allow people to learn job skills while working and earning a salary, have been the gold standard of the building trades. Now they are gaining popularity in areas like manufacturing and technology as the cost of college soars and businesses search for the next generation of workers with specific skills.
“Attracting people to the
profession is a challenge,” said Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for the National Association of Landscape Professionals, the Fairfax-Va.-based trade group that unveiled the program in February.
For each busy season, the U.S. landscape industry hires roughly 300,000 American workers, including seasonal employees. “Many, many industries are all vying for the same talent pool,” she said.
The association’s apprenticeship launch coincides with a new website, LandscapeIndustryCareers.com, highlighting benefits of the job with a social media campaign encouraging established workers to post about #WhyILandscape.
Apprentices will learn at least 17 specific skills falling under three topics: landscape installation, landscape management and irrigation, Ms. Henriksen explained.
They will work for 2,000 hours under the tutelage of employees within a company, getting paid as they go. They also will complete 144 hours of online instruction.
Upon completing the program, apprentices will receive a certification approved by the U.S. Department of Labor, allowing them to work anywhere in the country.
Ms. Henriksen said the program’s skills allow people to pursue a variety of careers, different styles of farming, electrical work, construction, tree maintenance and lawn care — roughly 100 career paths, in her group’s estimation.
Landscape companies in the Pittsburgh region, which are just starting to recruit for the program, see the effort as long overdue.
“The unions have all these apprenticeship programs and it’s considered skilled labor — and, finally, landscapers are part of it,” said Sarah Rizzitano, president of A&N Lawn Service Inc. in West View.
Apprenticeships have earned rare bipartisan support.
Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has offered $7 million to help companies fund apprenticeships in Pennsylvania, and he has a goal of doubling the number of apprentices in the state to 30,000 workers. Since 2016, when the state launched the Apprenticeship and Training Office, 100 programs have been created.
In June 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to increase apprentices from the current 500,000 to 5 million people.
‘It’s been a problem’
Problems with the federal H-2B visa system in recent years have compounded the typical workforce challenges for landscapers.
A&N Lawn Service Inc. usually hires about 14 foreign workers on H-2B visas — a type of visa used by landscapers, seafood pickers, amusement parks and other industries to fill seasonal jobs. Last summer, the company’s visas weren’t approved until July. This year, the company is one of many still waiting for workers.
“Every year, it’s been a problem, and it’s frustrating for us because it’s an unknown,” Ms. Rizzitano said. “You don’t know if you’ll get them or not.”
The program has run up against long-standing federal caps and problems with the lottery system used to distribute the 66,000 available visas.
While there are no plans for H-2B reform, changes in legal immigration visas could signal more pressure ahead. Last week, Mr. Trump unveiled a plan to put priority on higherskilled, more educated immigrants in the country. (H2Bs are considered “nonimmigrant” visas because workers do not take up residence in the United States.)
In addition to visa pressures, unemployment in the Pittsburgh region has dipped near the lowest rate in a generation.
Last June, one Pittsburgh landscape company cited the workforce challenges in closing its operations after nearly 50 years in operation. LMS Greenhouse & Nursery closed its 15-acre garden center in Hampton after it failed to get authorization to bring on 10 Mexican workers it had come to rely on.
Attracting new workers
Apprenticeships, the landscape industry is hoping, will be the long-term solution to recruiting and retaining people.
In the construction industry, a partnership between companies and unions spends millions each year to train workers across 16 building trades in the Pittsburgh region. Joint apprenticeship training centers teach carpenters, operating engineers, iron workers, electricians and other trades.
Ms. Rizzitano is enrolling three of her employees in the landscape apprenticeship program, which was drawn up by the industry group and will be administered by the companies.
The apprentices will build work hours toward the apprenticeship through the summer and then take online courses, administered by Penn State Extension, when landscape jobs slow down in the fall and winter, she said.
She hopes to attract young people by visiting high schools and community colleges this year and showing the apprenticeship in action.
“It builds upon the skills they have now, and it shows that we’re investing in our employees,” she said.
Pay in the landscape business ranges widely on the type of job. According to the national association, installers and technicians can start below $30,000 a year but make up to $81,000.
Median pay for landscape architects was $68,230 last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Not just lawn mowing
The industry is presenting landscape jobs as more than just the lawn-mowing, mulch-spreading and upkeep that served as a gig for teenagers looking to earn a buck during the summer.
“This isn’t the landscaping business that a lot of older people remember from when they were young,” said Dan Eichenlaub, owner of Eichenlaub Inc. in Indiana Township, which expects to employ about 85 people this year. “We’re trying to find people who want a career in this — and not just a job.”
Foreign workers with H2B visas usually make up about 10% of his crew, Mr. Eichenlaub said. Without them, the company would lose out on projects that represent about $800,000 in revenue over the year, he said.
“If I can find enough apprentices, I won’t have to rely on H-2B visas as much,” Mr. Eichenlaub said. Though he’s gotten disappointingly little response for the apprenticeship program so far, he’s optimistic the local workers are out there.
“It just goes to show how tight the labor market is,” he said. “You just have to work very hard to find them.”