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BRANSON NEWS: In resort towns across America, this summer will be no picnic.As teens shun seasonal work–and immigrants who’ve largely picked up the slack in recent years face increased hurdles getting U.S. work visas–many businesses owners within these communities are scrambling to find staff. To avoid having to leave shops shuttered during their busiest time of the year, some are dropping their standards for whom to hire. Others are tapping even more creative avenues for finding workers.
“We’re throwing as much jello against the wall as we can to see what sticks,” says Heather Hardinger, who heads up the economic development office in Branson, Missouri, a small town in the Ozarks that gets a massive influx of tourists each summer.
Why all the fuss?
Many businesses in towns whose economies are bolstered by tourism rely on an immigration program called the H-2B visa. Run by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services since 1952, the H-2B allows U.S. employers who say they struggle to find qualified, American talent to bring on temporary foreign labor for roughly three months. The program, similar to the tech industry’s coveted H-1B visa system, is capped at 66,000 visas, including 33,000 for the winter months and 33,000 for the summer. A landscaper, for instance, might bring on a handful of people to mow lawns May through August, and a separate grouping to operate snow blowers from December through February.
The Trump administration has made moves to expand the H-2B visa. The recently passed omnibus spending bill, for instance, nearly doubles the number of H-2B visas available for entrepreneurs, to 129,574. However, that effort, coupled with other reforms, have largely left entrepreneurs feeling whipsawed and confused.
The Department of Labor prevents H-2B workers from extending their existing visas. Rather, they must apply for a …
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