Changes announced recently to the federal H-2A visa program will make the process of hiring foreign workers for agriculture on a temporary or seasonal basis more expensive and add more layers of bureaucracy to the process of finding people to hire, says Sonoma County, Calif., farmer Jeff Carlton, who has used the H-2A visa program for more than three years.
The U.S. Department of Labor has reversed rules written by the Bush administration that made the program a little easier for farm employers to use. The new rule increases workers' wages and requires producers to do what they can to hire domestic workers to fill agricultural jobs. The new rule was published in the Federal Register and takes effect March 15.
"This just makes it tougher to find workers, especially if the Department of Labor wants us to try and find domestic workers to do agricultural work," Carlton says.
"Before, you had to place an ad to try to find domestic workers, and when you couldn't find them locally, then that showed the need for hiring workers from outside of the United States. By adding more layers of bureaucracy to the process, it will be tougher for us to find workers, because no one around here wants to do this work."
source : cottonfarming
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