Visa cap pinches resorts

WASHINGTON -- Cynthia Makris, general manager of the 85-unit Naswa Resort on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, was looking forward to the arrival of 55 hand-picked Jamaican employees, including eight trained cooks. They were scheduled to arrive in April to help prepare for the resort's May opening.

Now, however, Makris is scrambling to fill those jobs because the employees are not permitted to enter the United States. The seasonal Naswa Resort, open from May through October, is one of many hotels in the United States trying to fill vacant jobs in time to either open hotels or staff up for summertime crowds.

"Will we survive? Yes. Will it be a struggle? Yes," Makris said.

The summer hospitality work-force shortage issue is now a crisis after the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services announced in March that it had already received the maximum number of H-2B visa applications for seasonal workers for fiscal year 2004, which is capped by federal law at 66,000 annually.

The USCIS announced it would not accept any new H-2B petitions for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. In past years, the cap has been exceeded because the tracking methodology did not accurately tabulate the actual number of H-2B visas issued until after the fiscal year ended, according to an advisory from the American Hotel & Lodging Assn. Hotels in regions that rely on seasonal summer tourism are particularly affected because companies can only apply for H-2B employees 120 days before the workers are needed. Since the USCIS stopped accepting applications in March, it was too late for many properties to secure their expected summer foreign work force, said Shawn McBurney, v.p. of governmental affairs at the AH&LA.

But before applying for H-2B employees, properties first have to demonstrate that they can't find U.S. workers to fill the positions, which leaves them desperately trying to hire Americans for the same housekeeping and dishwashing jobs that they couldn't fill to begin with.

"The New England states are getting killed, but other areas of the country are also feeling the pinch," said Art Canter, president of the Massachusetts Lodging Assn.

The hospitality industry is hoping to save part of the summer with the help of an emergency bill that would add another 40,000 H-2B visas for this fiscal year. Another recently introduced bill exempts workers who have participated in the program for the past two years. For the bills to pass through the legislature quickly, unanimous votes are necessary. A couple of senators are against it, McBurney said.

In the meantime, properties are preparing for a tough summer. If they can't hire enough employees, some hotels might have to turn guests away, forcing travelers to find vacation spots.

"If people can't go to Maine or Cape Cod, they'll go to Canada," McBurney said. "We'll be outsourcing tourism." Paul Hartgen, president of the New Hampshire Lodging & Restaurant Assn., said the organization's 700 members are concerned that they won't be able to exceed guests' service expectations. If tourists go elsewhere or don't return next year, New Hampshire will risk losing its biggest source of tax revenue: tourism.

"I don't think anyone realizes how much this will hurt local economies," said Bob O'Neil, director of human resources and guest activities at Grand Teton Lodge Co., which is based in Moran, Wyo.

In the Rocky Mountain states, resorts are equally worried about staffing up for summer crowds, O'Neil said. "Hotels are panicked," said Lynn Birleffi, executive director of the Wyoming Lodging & Restaurant Assn. "We only have 490,000 people in the state and the need for H-2B workers is urgent because there's not a large enough labor pool," said Mike Moser, the association's government affairs director. "We have no other options."

"If we are understaffed and don't do a good job this year, we lose business for years to come," Birleffi said. Grand Teton Lodge Co., which has three resorts in Grand Teton National Park, hires 1,000 employees for the extended May through October summer season. About 15 percent of those workers normally are H-2B employees who have worked at the resorts for the past three or four years.

"[Now] none of them will be able to work for us," O'Neil said. "Not only will we lose good workers, but [we'll lose] experienced, trained workers."

O'Neil is collaborating with Grand Teton's parent company, Vail Resorts, to recruit H-2B workers currently employed at other Vail hotels. Because these employees came to the United States before the March announcement, they can stay on extended visas, he said. If Grand Teton can't hire enough workers this way, it will try to recruit students who likely will depart in August--leaving the resorts understaffed for the remainder of the summer.

"It's going to hurt this summer," he said.

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