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H-2A applications jump in 2017
Story Date: 1/12/2018
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Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 1/11/18
As President Donald Trump continues to push for limiting the number of foreign-born workers in the U.S., the success of the H-2A agricultural guestworker program is sending a different message. In fiscal 2017, the Labor Department received a record number of applications for H-2A visas - upward of 200,000 and an almost 15 percent increase from fiscal 2016.
Florida tops the list: Even though California is the largest agricultural-producing state, Florida had the most applications for the Labor Department's H-2A visas. The top 5 states - Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Washington and California - have more than half of the total H-2A visa recipients in the country.
In 2017, California growers and contractors, who produce over one-third of the nation's vegetables and two-thirds of fruits and nuts, set a state record for recruiting its largest number of H-2A guestworkers, a new Los Angeles Times analysis found. The visas are for temporary or seasonal jobs that last under 10 months.
Which crops need the most guestworkers? Eleven percent of the producers to request certification focus on crops of berries. Apple and tobacco growers followed as the top crops/occupations seeking H-2A visas.
The North Carolina Growers Association - which helps members contract foreign labor - submitted almost 12,000 applications for visas to help mostly tobacco growers.
By the numbers: In just over a decade, the agricultural guestworker program has grown rapidly amid chronic labor shortages in the industry. In 2016, more than 130,000 H-2A visas were issued to workers, marking a 160 percent increase in H-2A jobs from 2006, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Labor Department's numbers, however, only reflect the first step in the H-2A visa application process, and are not the actual number of visas issued. The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of issuing the visas and has not yet released its fiscal 2017 numbers. But given that the H-2A visa program is not capped - meaning there's no limit to how many are issued - the numbers are typically not too different.
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