Visa lottery and housing crisis exacerbate seasonal workforce shortage

LACONIA — For decades, landmark seasonal businesses like the Naswa Resort have relied on H-2B visa holders to fill their positions. Thanks to the Lakes Region’s highly limited housing and aging population, temporary workers have been a boon for seasonal businesses. For several years, demand for the visas has drastically outweighed supply, forcing the government to implement a lottery system, meaning some seasonal businesses will have to rely on lady luck when it comes to filling their staffing quotas.

“Being a large seasonal business in the Lakes Region is very difficult,” said Cynthia Makris, general manager of the Naswa Resort. “We cannot provide year-round positions. We have 140 employees in the summertime, and five to six employees year-round. Twenty-five years ago, we couldn’t hire enough people.”

A quarter of a century ago, Makris combatted this problem by signing up with the H-2B visa program, which allows businesses to hire foreign workers for seasonal and temporary positions. The wages for each job is set by the U.S. Department of Labor, and businesses must apply each year for workers. Unlike the commonly used J-1 visa program, there is no educational component required, making it easier to find workers.

“Years ago we used to file on our own, but things have changed,” Makris said. “We have an immigration attorney that files for us, we have a recruiter in Jamaica who recruits the workers, we also have returning workers.”

Makris' longest running returning H-2B employee is a cook who has come to the work at the Naswa for 17 years. Due to the lottery system, there’s a strong chance that they might not be able to return. 

“Most employers I talk to who have H-2B workers want them back,” said New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen during a visit to Laconia. “In the early 2000s, I looked at some data that showed where we were going to be by the late teens and early 2020s done by a workforce expert down at the Kennedy School. What he showed was that we were going to be dependent on older workers and immigrants by the time we got to the late teens and early '20s. What we’ve had is the most restrictive immigration policies in my lifetime over the last five years. It's understandable we have a workforce shortage. We haven’t increased the number of workers and we don't have the pool to draw on that we did a decade ago. I think it's important to not only increase the number of H-2B visas but also look at immigration reform to help address our workforce shortage.”

Recently, the Biden administration added 35,000 more H-2B visas to alleviate some of the strain, but there’s a catch for Makris, whose workers come almost exclusively from Jamaica. In addition to the constraints, the 35,000 additional slots won’t be available until late June, costing seasonal businesses precious high traffic days. 

“They added 35,000 [visas] but 11,500 can only be from the northern triangle,” Makris explained. The northern triangle is a set of Latin American countries that includes El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Of the bonus visas, 23,500 are set aside for returning H-2B workers, meaning visa holders who have been returning to the U.S. for the past three years, but Makris believes this is not nearly enough. 

“It's a shame because 23,500 visas is not enough for the whole country,” Makris said. “We’re told by our immigration attorney it's going to go to the lottery.”

Last month, Shaheen pressed Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on the delay of available H-2B visas during a hearing at the Appropriations Subcommittee.

“I very much appreciated the administration’s decision to provide 35,000 additional visas for the second half of fiscal year 2022, but I’m really concerned that despite having this announcement a month ago, these visas have still not been made available,” Shaheen said. 

For Makris, the politics are doing nothing but hurting seasonal businesses like hers, who were understaffed or unable to open for Memorial Day.

“They delayed it because half the house doesn’t want immigrants here, the other half doesn't want foreign labor,” Makri said. “In the meantime we’re all struggling to open our businesses for Memorial Day and the summer season, we’re not going to see these additional visas until the end of June.”

When asked if how she felt about the Naswa’s chances of getting enough workers this season, Makris stated that she was “not confident at all.”

During Shaheen’s visit to Laconia, the senator spoke of rosy tourism projections for the summer season, which totaled $2.2 billion, but she acknowledged the staffing challenges faced by seasonal businesses. 

“My goal would be to try and do everything we can to ensure the people you need, those workers, are able to get them [visas] because they are not taking jobs from people in New Hampshire,” Shaheen said. “They’re folks who come, contribute, then they come home. For a lot of places, the same people come back year after year.”

Until the visas come through, businesses like the Naswa are strapped for workers, and local recruiting efforts haven’t gone so well. 

“We desperately need housekeepers,” Makris said. “We hired 10 local housekeepers, we on-boarded them, did their paperwork and all 10 didn’t show up on their first day of work.”

For visa holders, seasonal, and even long-term employees, housing is still a major issue in Laconia. Often employers have to rent out, or purchase housing to keep their temporary workers, while those looking to live and work full-time can’t find an affordable situation. 

“The beauty of the Lakes Region is we’re a great place to retire to, but we need a reason for people to live and stay in the region,” Makris said. “There’s not enough affordable housing. Even for young people. We had college kids that would come and live in the Lakes Region for the summer, now they can’t find a place to live.”

The pandemic not only exacerbated the housing crunch, but also pushed federal spending to alleviate the issue. However the state has been sluggish in implementing this relief according to Shaheen.

“First of all there’s a lot of funding that is still available in the state. There’s funding the governor has that he has not spent, $100 million that he has dedicated to housing that he sat on for a very long time has finally now gone to the governor’s council. After changes they’re hoping to have those funds available,” Shaheen said. 

“Even with this $100 million that has been allocated, there were a lot of loose ends in it,” said Laconia Mayor Andrew Hosmer, who added that a more streamlined process was required for swifter implementation the future. “It was so vague, many mayors around the state found it was very difficult to understand how that money was to be allocated, how it was going to get to municipalities. And I think that was unfortunate, again, we’ve had the money for quite some time, we’ve had the problem for quite some time. It should have been a better thought out plan with specificity. Mayors who are throughout the state and could access this money in the best way possible, make sure they don't have more homeless citations or people being evicted.”

As for the visa issue, Shaheen stated that full immigration reform and finding  bipartisan ground is key to solving the country’s workforce crisis. 

“I think we need a comprehensive immigration policy,” Shaheen said. “We don’t have it. Part of it should be the J-1 program an the H-2B visa program. And we need to get some bipartisan agreement on how to get that done.”