So we’re saying that Maine now has 100% employment? No full time welfare recipients laying about? How about able bodied homeless? High school grads? Moms needing part time work? Elderly?
“So we’re saying that Maine now has 100% employment? No full time welfare recipients laying about? How about able bodied homeless? High school grads? Moms needing part time work? Elderly?”
If a company facing a full employment situation wants to hire, then it has to bump up wages or benefits to do so. The companies in question are trying to hold the line on costs. I can tell you there is a point in the cost equation where even I, now retired, would go back to work. I can’t blame the companies for wanting to make more profit and hold down costs. However, bringing in foreign cheap labor that lives up to six to a room is not the answer as far as me as a citizen is concerned. Hold the line, Trump!
The H-2B Visa is for non-agriculture, seasonal workers, primarily in the tourist/hospitality industry. Many of these people work at resorts as waitstaff, hosts and hostesses, cooks, housekeeping, and other highly visible positions that interact with the guests. In my experience, many of these positions are filled by people from Eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent, Ireland, the UK, Spain, and Portugal. They are generally educated, fluent in English, well-groomed, and well-behaved, and they often take these jobs, not for the money, but for the cultural experience. The last people that a resort owner wants in these positions are uneducated, illiterate, unreliable, and occasionally hygienically challenged welfare queens and homeless people interacting with guests who are paying thousands of dollars for a resort vacation. As for high school grads and part-time moms, there are not enough of them who are willing to take a temporary, seasonal position that requires long hours of hard work for low pay at a location that is often many miles from home and family. Indeed, many of these seasonal H-2B workers are provided room and board in a dormitory-like setting on or near the resort that is part of the compensation package.