The United States will issue up to 15,000 additional visas for temporary non-agricultural workers this budget year, in a bid to tackle with what it described as a shortage of labor force, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Monday.
“Congress gave me the discretionary authority to provide temporary relief to American businesses at risk of significant harm due to a lack of available seasonal workers,” John Kelly, secretary of the DHS, said in a statement.
To qualify for the H-2B visas, U.S. employers must attest under the penalty of perjury that “their business is likely to suffer irreparable harm” if it could not bring in those nonimmigrant workers.
The H-2B program allows foreign workers from over 80 countries to be hired for seasonal, non-agricultural jobs needed by U.S. businesses at a government-set prevailing wage.
Industries, including resorts, landscaping, seafood harvesting and processing, and forestry, rely on the supply of cheap workforce through the H-2B pipeline.
Kelly made the announcement after consulting with the labor department as “there are not enough qualified and willing U.S. workers available to perform temporary non-agricultural labor to meet the needs of some American companies in fiscal year 2017.”
In May, Congress voted to allow Kelly to offer more than an annual limit of 66,000 H-2B visas.
(Report via PNA)
